(Late 1st century AD)

Characters
Encolpius	The narrator and principal character, moderately well educated and presumably from a relatively elite background
Giton	A handsome sixteen-year-old boy, a (possible) slave and a sexual partner of Encolpius
Ascyltos	A friend of Encolpius, rival for the ownership of Giton
Trimalchio	An extremely vulgar and wealthy freedman
Eumolpus	An aged, impoverished and lecherous poet of the sort rich men are said to hate
Lichas	An enemy of Encolpius
Tryphaena	A woman infatuated with Giton
Corax	A barber, the hired servant of Eumolpus
Circe	A woman attracted to Encolpius
Chrysis	Circe's servant, also in love with Encolpius

CONTENTS

I. Among the Rhetoricians
II. Giton, Ascyltus, and I
III. Lost Treasure Recovered
IV. The Priestess of Priapus
V. Dinner with Trimalchio
VI. Giton, Ascyltus, and I Again
VII. I Meet Eumolpus
VIII. Old Loves and New Rivals
IX. Lichas and Tryphaena
X. Discovered
XI. The Pleasures of Peace
XII. Shipwrecked
XIII.The Road to Croton
XIV. Eumolpus on the Writing of Poetry
XV. Life at Croton
XVI. Circe
XVII. A Second Attempt
XVIII. I Take Myself in Hand
XIX. Oenothea
XX. Interlude with Chrysis
XXI. Philomela
XXII. Restored
XXIII. Matters at Croton Come to a Head
XXIV. Eumolpus Makes His Will



I


AMONG THE RHETORICIANS



[I] "But look here," I protested, "aren't you professors hounded
by just these same Furies of inflated language and pompous heroics?
How else can you account for all that wretched rant:

Nay, but gentle sirs, mark ye well these wounds I suffered
in the struggle to preserve our common liberties. 'Twas on
thy behalf I made the supreme sacrifice of this eye. Vouch-
safe me, therefore, a helping hand. Guide me to my children,
for my withers are unwrung and support my frame no more...

And so on.

"No one would mind this claptrap if only it put our students on the
road to real eloquence. But what with all these sham heroics and this
stilted bombast you stuff their heads with, by the time your students
set foot in court, they talk as though they were living in another
world. No, I tell you, we don't educate our children at school; we
stultify them and then send them out into the world half-baked. And
why? Because we keep them utterly ignorant of real life. The common
experience is something they never see or hear. All they know is pirates
trooping up the beach in chains, tyrants scribbling edicts compelling
sons to chop off their fathers' heads or oracles condemning three
virgins--but the more the merrier--to be slaughtered to stop some
plague. Action or language, it's all the same: great sticky honeyballs
of phrases, every sentence looking as though it had been plopped and
rolled in poppyseed and sesame. [2] A boy gorged on a diet like this
can no more acquire real taste than a cook can stop stinking. What's
more, if you'll pardon my bluntness, it was you rhetoricians who more
than anyone else strangled true eloquence. By reducing everything to
sound, you concocted this bloated puffpaste of pretty drivel whose
only real purpose is the pleasure of punning and the thrill of am-
biguity. Result? Language lost its sinew, its nerve. Eloquence died.

"But in those great days when Sophocles and Euripides invariably found
the exact word, talent had not yet been cramped into the mold of these
set-speeches of yours. Long before you academic pedants smothered genius
with your arrogance, Pindar and the nine lyric poets were still so modest
that they declined even to attempt the grand Homeric manner. Nor are my
objections based on poetry alone. What about Plato or Demosthenes? I
never heard it said of them that they ever submitted to your sort of
formal training. No, great language is chaste language--if you'll let
me use a word like 'chaste' in this connection--not turgidity and worked-
up purple patches. It soars to life through a natural, simple loveliness.
But then, in our own time, that huge flatulent rhetoric of yours moved
from Asia to Athens. Like a baleful star, it blighted the minds of the
young; their talents shriveled at the very moment when they might have
taken wing and gone on to greatness. And once the standards of good
speech were corrupted, eloquence stopped dead or stuttered into silence.
Who, I ask you, has achieved real greatness of style since Thucydides
and Hyperides? Poetry herself is sick, her natural glow of color leached
away. All the literary arts, in fact, cloyed with this diet of bombast,
have stunted or died, incapable of whitening naturally into an honest
old age. And in painting you see the same decay: on the very day when
Egyptian arrogance dared to reduce it to a set of sterile formulas,
that great art died."

[3] Agamemnon, however, refused to let me rant on an instant longer
than it had taken him to sweat out his declamation in the classroom.
"Young man," he broke in, "I see that you are a speaker of unusual
taste and, what is even rarer, an admirer of common sense. So I shan't
put you off with the usual hocus-pocus of the profession. But in all
justice allow me to observe that we teachers should not be saddled
with the blame for this bombast of which you complain. After all, if
the patients are lunatics, surely a little professional lunacy is
almost mandatory in the doctor who deals with them. And unless we
professors spout the sort of twaddle our students admire, we run the
nsk of being, in Cicero's phrase, 'left alone at our lecterns.' Let
me offer you by way of analogy those professional sponges in the comic
plays who scrounge their suppers by flattering the rich. Like us,
they must devote their entire attention to one end--the satisfaction
of their audience; for unless their little springes con their listen-
ers' ears, they stand to lose their quarry. We are, that is, rather
in the position of a fisherman: unless he baits his hook with the sort
of tidbit the little fishes like, he is doomed to spend eternity sit-
ting on his rock without a chance of a bite.

[4] "So what should the verdict be? In my opinion, those parents who
refuse to impose a stern discipline upon their sons must bear the blame.
As with everything else, even their children are sacrificed on the altar
of their ambition. Then, in their haste and greed to reap a harvest,
they shove these callow, newborn babies into the public arena, and elo-
quence--that same eloquence which they profess to honor as the crown
of a liberal education--is chopped down in size to fit a fetus. If, however,
our students lessons could be graded by order of difficulty; if the minds
of the young could be molded and shaped by long years of intimacy with
the minds of great thinkers; if these crude attempts to form a style
could be ruthlessly chastened and these budding talents steeped the study
of great models, then, and only then, might our great lost art of oratory
recover her old magnificence. But what do we find instead? The schoolrooms
packed with children wasting their time and playing at learning; our re-
cent graduates disgracing themselves in public life and, what is worst of
all, the very things that they mislearned when young, they are reluctant
to confess in old age. And lest you think I despise the simplicity and
spontaneity of old Lucilius, let me extemporize my sentiments in verse:


　　　　　　　[5] ADVICE TO A YOUNG POET

　　　　　If greatness, poet, is your goal,
　　　　　the craft begins with self-control.
　　　　　For poems are of the poet part,
　　　　　and what he is decides his art.
　　　　　With character true poems begin.
　　　　　Poet, learn your discipline.

　　　　　Avoid ambition as the blight
　　　　　of talent. If the rich invite
　　　　　you out to dine, be proud; decline.
　　　　　Don't snuff your genius in your wine
　　　　　nor pin your Muse to clique or claque.
　　　　　Avoid the postures of the hack.

Whether Athena, poet, from her Parthenon smiles down
upon your youth, or Spartan homestead gave you birth,
or African Cyrene where the lovely Sirens sang,
dedicate, I say, your early years to verse. Drink deep
at the great Homeric font and satisfy your thirst.
But when you've drunk your fill, then discipline your
　　soul
by study with the wise: let logic and the laws of
　　thought
be your curriculum and curb. And when at last
the great Socratic troupe admits you as their friend,
shake loose your reins and give your passions room to
　　run:
wield a free man's prose, those weapons forged in war
by great Demosthenes. Then let the Roman writers
guide you home from Greece; transform your borrowed
　　taste
and build a native style. Meanwhile, withdraw from
　　court,
and let the epic, martial Muse run proud and free
to make such clangor as she, by lightning march
and sudden ambush, may unloose. Make war your feast;
sing such clamor you unleash the thundered verse
of epic Cicero, bloody but unbowed.
　　O poet,
gird yourself with every goodness you can get,
until the Muse herself usurps your swelling tongue
and sets your name beside the great on Helicon!




II


GITON, ASCYLTUS, AND I



[6] But while I was concentrating on Agamemnon's poem, I failed to see
Ascyltus slink away...



Some time later, while we were strolling through the garden, still hot
in argument, a great crowd of students came pouring out into the portico,
just leaving, I supposed, the speech of the professor who had followed
Agamemnon. But while they were jeering away at the speaker's ideas and
criticizing the whole structure of his speech, I seized my chance and
quickly slipped away in pursuit of Ascyltus. But I had forgotten where
our rooms were and kept losing my way. Worse, whichever road I took, I
somehow kept coming back to the place where I had started. Finally,
drenched with sweat and completely limp from running around in circles,
I went up to a little old woman who was selling vegetables beside the
road.

[7] "Excuse me, ma'am," I asked, "but would you happen to know where I
live?"

Apparently charmed by this genteel stupidity, she said, "But I of course
I do." With that, she rose to her feet and started off while I tagged tame-
ly at her heels, thinking she must be a prophetess. A few minutes later,
in a much shabbier section of town, she stopped before a door, pulled back
the curtain and said, "This must be where you live." I was saying that I'd
never seen the place before when I suddenly saw several women walking sug-
gestively to and fro and a number of large posters, each stating a price.
Slowly, much too slowly, it dawned on me that the treacherous old hag had
led me to a whorehouse. I cursed the old bitch out, covered my head in my
robes and sprinted straight through the whorehouse in the direction of the
entrance on the next street. There in the doorway, just coming in, who should
I meet but Ascyltus himself, looking half-dead and every bit as exhausted as
myself. In fact, for an instant I wondered whether the same old woman had
brought him there too. Then, with a great laugh of relief, I threw myself
into his arms and asked him what in the world he was doing in a place like
that.

[8] "Gods," he gasped, mopping away the sweat, "if you only knew what I've
been through!"

"But what happened?" I asked.

He was still panting so furiously he could barely speak. "I've been running
around like crazy. I must have covered the whole city, but I couldn't find
our rooms anywhere. Then a man came up, respectable family-man type, or so
I thought, and very kindly offered to lead me to my rooms. Well, he steered
me through a lot of back alleys and finally brought me here. Then he pulled
out his wallet and began to proposition me. He'd already paid the Madam of
the house for a room. The next thing I knew he was feeling me up, and if I
hadn't been stronger than he was, I'd have been damn well raped by now.'



Every person in the place seemed to be completely drunk on aphrodisiacs.



But by uniting our forces, we managed to repel the invaders attack...



[9] Dimly, as through a thick fog, I caught sight of Giton standing at the
corner of an alley and I raced over...



When I asked the boy whether he had made our supper, he suddenly burst into
tears, collapsed on the bed and lay there wiping his eyes with his thumb. Fran-
tic at seeing him in such a state, I begged him to tell me what had happened.
Only much later, after my pleas had turned into threats, did he speak, and even
then with great reluctance. "It's that man," he sobbed, "the one you call your
brother, your friend Ascyltus. He ran up to my garret a little while ago and
tried to take me by force. When I screamed for help, he pulled out his sword.
'If you want to play Lucretia, boy; he cried, 'you've met your Tarquin.' "

Furious at such treachery, I rushed across to Ascyltus and shook my fist in his
face. "What do you say to that?" I yelled. "You male whore, you! You bugger!
Even your breath stinks of buggery!"

At first he pretended to be insulted. Then he started throwing his fists around
and yelling at the top of his voice. "Shut up!" he bellowed. "You stinking glad-
iator! Even in the arena you were a washout! Shut up! Thief! You cheap burglar!
When were you ever man enough to take on a real woman? No, first It was me in
the garden. Now it's this boy in the inn."

"What's more," I said bitterly, "you sneaked away when the professors were de-
bating.'

[10] "What the hell was I supposed to do, sap?" He shrieked. "Die of hunger?
Stand there and listen to that drivel, that rhetoric of broken bottles and
cheap dream-analysis? By god, you're ten times worse!'Trying to scrounge a
meal by buttering a poet!"

Finally, however, the squalid argument ended and we soon found ourselves
laughing and at peace with each other once more and went on to other things.



But the memory of what Ascyltus had done kept coming back and rankling. Fin-
ally, I decided to have it out. "Ascyltus," I said, "let's face it: we're not
compatible any more. Let's divide our few possessions and strike out for our-
selves, each one on his own. You're an educated man, and so am I. But just so
we don't tread on each other's toes, I'll arrange to take a different tutoring
job. Otherwise we'll have a thousand run-ins every day and get ourselves gos-
siped about all over town."

He agreed. "However, for today," he added, "let's keep together, since our
position as professors is worth an invitation to dinner and we don t want to
lose it. Then tomorrow, if that's what you want, I'll start looking for an-
other bed and a little friend of my own."

"But it's silly," I objected, "to postpone our decision."



It was sex, of course, that made us part ways so brusquely. For a long time now
I had been anxious to remove this obstacle in the way of resuming my old rela-
tionship with Giton.



[11] After wandering all over town in a fruitless search for work, I returned to
the room. At last I was free to make love to Giton without restraint, and wrap-
ping the boy in the closest of embraces, I took my fill of a bliss that even
happy lovers might envy. We were still at it, however, when Ascyltus came tip-
toeing up to the door. Finding it locked, he banged so violently that the bolts
rattled loose, the door swung open, and he walked in and discovered us at our
games. Amused at first, he clapped　his hands and roared with laughter till the
whole room shook. Then he snatched away the cloak I had thrown over Giton and
myself. "Well, well," he sneered, "what's going on here, my saintly friend? Are
you sharing some-thing with our little friend?" And not content with sarcasm,
he pulled a leather thong from his pack and began to flog me mercilessly,
punctuating every blow with fresh sneers: "So that's your notion of sharing with
your friends, is it?"



III


LOST TREASURE RECOVERED



[12] It was just turning dark when we came into the market in the main square.
There we saw a great deal of merchandise laid out for sale, most of it worth-
less stuff, but its shoddiness or suspect provenance now decently obscured in
the half-light. Happening to have the stolen mantle with us, we took advantage
of the time and place and unrolled a small strip of it in a dark corner, hop-
ing that the richness and color of the material might attract a buyer. We did
not have long to wait. After a few minutes, a peasant--whose face seemed some-
how familiar to me--came up, accompanied by a girl, and began to finger the man-
tle very closely. Ascyltus, for his part, could not keep his eyes off the shoulder of
our peasant customer, and then I suddenly saw him blanch and gasp with aston-
ishment. With growing excitement, I began to stare too, for the peasant was
strikingly like the man who had found our tunic in the deserted place where
we had left it. Finally there could be no doubt: it was the same man. Ascyl-
tus, not daring to believe his eyes and terrified of alarming the man, went
up closer and, lifting the hem of the tunic off his shoulder, started to
scrutinize it like a prospective buyer.

[13] By some absolutely incredible stroke of luck, the peasant had not yet
stuck his meddling fingers into the seam; in fact, he was condescendingly of-
fering the tunic for sale as though it were some beggar's cast-off. Seeing
that our cache was intact and that we were dealing with a fool, Ascyltus mo-
tioned me aside. "Friend," he whispered, "do you realize that our treasure
has come back to us? That's the same tunic, the one I was so upset at having
lost. And, so far as I can tell, the gold is still there in the seams, intact. But
what should we do? Should we bring a formal complaint against him in court
for the recovery of our property?"

Enormously pleased, not only because we had recovered our lost cache, but
because our stroke of luck had relieved me of a very ugly suspicion, I told
Ascyltus that we should not beat around the bush, but take our complaint
directly to the authorities and obtain a court order if the peasant refused
to return our property.

[14] Ascyltus, having little faith in the authorities, disagreed. "Who can
vouch for us here?" he objected. "Who knows us? If you ask me, I think we
ought to buy it back, even though it's our own property, rather than risk
a chancy lawsuit:

　　　　What good are the laws where Money is king,
　　　　　where the poor are always wrong,
　　　　and even the mockers who scoff at the times
　　　　　will sell the truth for a song?

　　　　The courts are an auction where justice is sold;
　　　　the judge who presides bangs a gavel of gold."

But except for one small coin which we had put aside to buy lupins and chick-
peas, we had literally nothing. So to keep our quarry from leaving with our
cache, we decided to sell the mantle cheap, thinking that our profit on the
tunic would lighten the loss on the cloak. Acting quickly, we unrolled the
mantle completely and the veiled girl who had come with the peasant began a
minute inspection of the design. Suddenly she grabbed the cloak with both
hands and started to scream "Thief! Thief!" We, of course, panicked, but ra-
ther than do nothing, we started tugging away at our filthy tattered tunic
and screamed "Thief!" too. But the discrepancy in what we were claiming was
so great that even the tradesmen who had come running up at the outcry burst
out in guffaws. Not without justice, I must admit, since we were struggling
for a set of rags that couldn't even have been used for patches, while they
were claiming a cloak worth a good sum of money.

Finally Ascyltus succeeded in silencing them. [15] "It is obvious," he declared,
"that each party prefers his own property. Let them give us back our tunic and
we'll give them the cloak." This suggestion proved perfectly acceptable to the
peasant and the girl, but some local shysters--or better, sneak-thieves--anxious
to clear a profit on the mantle, demanded that the articles in dispute should
be deposited with them and the whole matter referred to the judge on the fol-
lowing day. Their concern, they said, was less the goods in dispute than the
fact that both parties clearly fell under suspicion of theft, a much graver mat-
ter. Those in favor of impounding the articles were a majority, and one of the
tradesmen, a bald fellow with a hideously splotched forehead who used to plead
cases now and then, confiscated the cloak and said that he would produce it in
evidence the next day. By now it was perfectly clear what their game was: they
would make off with the cloak, while we, of course, would not dare appear in
court for fear of being charged with theft.



The suggestion was quite agreeable to us, and a lucky incident served both par-
ties. For our peasant, livid with rage when we demanded that his tattered tunic
be publicly exhibited, threw it in Ascyltus' face. Then, since we now had nothing
to complain of, he demanded the retura of the mantle, the sole article still
under dispute.



Having recovered our cache, or so we thought, we hurried back to our room, locked
the door securely and burst out laughing both at the tradesmen whose sharp dealing
had restored us our property and the naiveté of our country opponent.

　　　　　　　　　　Too easy victory I find
　　　　　　　　　　repugnant to my pride.
　　　　　　　　　　I like the savor of desire
　　　　　　　　　　before I'm satisfied.



IV


THE PRIESTESS OF PRIAPUS



[16] We had barely finished the supper prepared for us by Citon's kindness when there
came a sudden imperious pounding at the door.

The blood drained from our faces. "Who is it?" we managed to quaver in chorus.

"Open the door and see for yourselves," said a voice. At that moment, of their own
accord, the bolts on the door slid back and the door swung wide before the intruder.
It was the veiled girl whom we had seen with the peasant in the market only an hour
before.

"So you thought you'd made a fool of me, did you?" she cried. "Listen. I am the maid
of Quartilla, the lady whose secret rites in the grotto of Priapus you disturbed. My
mistress has come here in person and asks to be allowed to speak with you. You
needn't be alarmed. Far from having come to reproach you or punish you, she would
like to know what god has brought two such charming young men into her vicinity."

[17] To all this we said not a single word, neither yes or no. An instant later,
Quartilla, followed by a little girl, made her entrance. Then, throwing herself
down on my bed, she promptly burst into a flood of tears. For a considerable time
she sat there sobbing away, while we looked on, too dumfounded by her sobs and this
obviously pre-arranged display of grief to say a word. By degrees the melodramatic
storm began to abate and the gusts of sobbing came less frequently. Proudly lifting
her head, she removed her veil. Then, twisting her fingers until the knuckles crack-
ed, she spoke:

"I confess, gentlemen, I do not know what name to give to this incredible audacity
of yours. 'Where have you learned this daring in which you surpass even the great
rogues of mythology? Heaven knows, I pity you. No man on earth may look on forbid-
den things as you have done and escape punishment. Especially here, a land so in-
fested with divinity that one might meet a god more easily than a man. You must not
think I have come here for vengeance. No, the spectacle of your innocent youth moves
me far more deeply than any wrong-you have done me. Moreover, I believe that your
terrible crime was done in youthful ignorance. But all night afterwards, I tossed
in terror, shivering so horribly that I felt an attack of malaria coming on. So I
asked for a cure in my dreams, and was commanded by a vision to track you down and
cure my malaria by a certain stratagem. But it is not the cure that troubles me
most; a greater grief ravages my heart and hurries me down to inevitable death. I
am afraid that in your youthful indiscretion you may be led to reveal the things
you saw in the chapel of Priapus and divulge our mysteries to the world. And so I
kneel before you now with outstretched hands and I beg you, I beseech you, not to
make a mockery of our nocturnal rites or reveal a secret so jealously guarded over
the centuries, a secret which scarcely a thousand men have ever known."

[18] She concluded this appeal to our pity by bursting into tears again, buried her-
self in my bed and lay there, shaken by protracted sobs. Torn as much by fear as
pity, I tried to reassure her. On neither score, I said, need she feel concern. No
one would betray her rites; as for her malaria, if some god had shown her a cure for
it, we would do everything in our power to assist the will of heaven, even if it
cost us our lives. Relieved by these promises, she began to brighten up, kissed me
several times and ran a caressing hand through the long curls that tumbled down a-
bout my ears. "Very well," she laughed, "I'll make my peace with you and settle my
case out of court. However, if you had refused to help me with my cure, I would
have come here tomorrow with a whole regiment prepared to avenge my honor and wipe
out my wrongs:

　　　The shame of defeat, the victor's disdain:
　　　　　I'd rather with neither live.
　　　The wise will fight when honor's at stake;
　　　　　the victors are those who forgive."

Then suddenly clapping her hands, she burst out with such an explosive peal of laugh-
ter that we were terrified. The maid who had announced her promptly followed suit
and even the little girl joined in. [19] For some time the whole room rang with
shrieks of theatrical laughter, while we looked first at each other and then at the
women, utterly bewildered by the abrupt change in their mood.



"I have given strict orders," Quartilla announced, "that no man is to be allowed to
set foot inside this inn today. I am determined to receive my malaria treatments in
complete and uninterrupted privacy." At this announcement, Ascyltus went white,
while I turned colder than a French winter and couldn't say a word. But on reflection
the fact that there were three of us relieved me of my worst fears. After all, if it
came to an attempt on our honor, three weak women were hardly a match for us. If no-
thing else, we had the strength of our sex in our favor and we were not hampered, as
they were, by long billowing dresses. In fact, if matters came to a fight, I had al-
ready paired us off. I would take on Quartilla, Ascyltus would break a lance with
the maid, and the little girl could be left to Giton.



At this unexpected blow, we lost all determination to resist, and the shadow of cer-
tain death was already falling on our eyes...



[20] "If you have anything worse than this in store for us, madam," I cried, "for god's
sake, despatch us quickly. Our crime is surely not so terrible that we deserve to die
in agony.".



The maid, whose name was Psyche, carefully spread a blanket on the floor...



With her hand she began to stroke that part of me which by now was cold as ice, shriv-
eled with a thousand deaths...



Thoroughly convinced by now of the dangers of meddling in the secrets of others,
Ascyltus buried his head in his robes...



Drawing two straps from her dress, Psyche proceeded to bind us hand and foot.



The conversation was languishing when Ascyltus broke out: "Hey, don't I deserve a drink
too?" Psyche, her little plan betrayed by my snickers, clapped her hands with amazement.
"Young man," she said to me, "I put the glass beside you. Have you drunk all that medi-
cine by yourself?"

"Did he really?" cried Quartilla. "Encolpius drank all our aphrodisiac?'



She shook all over with a wonderful rippling laugh...



In the end even Giton could not keep from laughing too, especially when the little girl
threw her arms around his neck and kissed the unresisting boy on the lips at least a
thousand times...



[21] In our misery we wanted to scream for help, but there was no one there to come to
our aid. Worse, every time I tried to shout, Psyche gouged my cheek with a hairpin,
while the little girl stood over poor Ascyltus with a sponge dipped in aphrodisiac...



As the crowning touch to our miseries, in waddled a eunuch dressed in a robe of myrtle-
green bound up with a sash... Springing at us again and again, he slobbered our faces
with filthy kisses and ground away at us with his buttocks until Quartilla, holding her
dress up above her knees, drove him off with a whale-bone-cane and ordered him to leave
us poor wretches alone.



We both of us swore the most solemn oaths that this terrible secret would die with us both...



Several masseurs arrived next. After a generous rubdown with oil, we slowly began to re-
vive. Then, feeling more or less ourselves again, we put on dinner-clothes and were con-
ducted into the next room where we found three couches drawn up and a table, very luxu-
riously laid out, awaiting us. We were invited to take our seats, and the meal began
with some sumptuous hors d'oeuvres. As for wine, we were fairly swimming in it, and it
was fine Falernian at that. After several more courses we had begun to doze sleepily off,
when Quartilla said: "No sleeping, gentlemen. Must I remind you again that the whole
night has been consecrated to Priapus?"



[22] Ascyltus, utterly exhausted by his ordeal, had just dozed off when the little maid
whom he had driven off so rudely tiptoed up to him while he slept and smeared his face
with soot and painted his lips and shoulders a bright scarlet. By this time my own ex-
haustion was beginning to tell, and I must have dozed off briefly. The servants in
both rooms had already fallen asleep. Some were slumped on the floor at the feet of the
guests, others stood propped against the wall, while several lay sprawled, head to head,
in the doorway. Meanwhile the oil-lamps had burnt low and gave out only a feeble dying
flicker.

Suddenly I woke with a start to see two Syrian slaves come gliding stealthily into the
room and start to pocket the silver. In their greed, however, they began to fight over
a large two-handled pitcher, each one tugging at a handle. Without warning the handles
snapped and the pitcher landed with a crash on the table. The table promptly collapsed,
showering silver and glassware in every direction, and one heavy goblet landed on the
head of a maid who was lying curled up on the couch. The cut was deep, and she screamed
with pain, alarming the two thieves and waking the rest of us from our drunken stupor.
The Syrians, realizing that they had been discovered, threw themselves on the end of
a couch and with great aplomb started to snore away as though they had been asleep for
hours.



The butler, awakened by the hubbub, rose and refilled the flickering lamps, while the
servants, sleepily rubbing their eyes, returned to their posts at our elbows. Then with
a great crash of cymbals a girl-musician strode in, woke up the remaining sleepers [23]
and the party began all over again. Quartilla kept urging us to drink up, while the
girl with the cymbals went marching around the room banging away to get us all back to
the proper festive mood.



At this point a second eunuch arrived, so incredibly insipid that he seemed a fitting
representative of the whole menage. Clapping his hands for attention, he cleared his
throat, grunted, and gave vent to the following:

　　　　　　　　　O fairies, O buggers,
　　　　　　　　　　O eunuchs exotic!
　　　　　　　　　Come running, come running,
　　　　　　　　　　ye anal-erotic!

　　　　　　　　　With soft little hands,
　　　　　　　　　　with flexible bums,
　　　　　　　　　Come, O castrati,
　　　　　　　　　　unnatural ones!

Having finished his effusion, he promptly started to slobber me with his loathsome kiss-
es, and before I knew it, he had straddled me on the couch and, despite my resistance,
pulled off my clothes. Then, for what seemed hours, he worked on me but without the
slightest success. Meanwhile a river of sweat and perfume was streaming down his face,
leaving his wrinkled cheeks so creviced with powder that he looked like some cracked
wall standing desolate under a pelting rain.

[24] Finally I was reduced to tears and in my agony cried out to Quartilla, "For god's
sake, madam, help me. Even your passive support would be appreciated."

At this she clasped her hands with delight. "Oh, what a funny little man it is! What
a fountain of wit!" she cried. "But I'm giving you exactly what you want. Didn't you
know we call these fellows passives?"

But misery wants company, and so did I. "Madam, I protest," I cried. "Is Ascyltus the
only man in the room who gets a holiday?"

"That seems only fair," she said. "We must see that Ascyltus has his share of our
passive support."

The eunuch immediately changed horses and mounted Ascyltus, kissing him so furiously
and battering him so hard with his buttocks that he almost murdered him. Giton, mean-
while, had come up closer to get a better view and was splitting with laughter at Ascv-
ltus' plight. Eying him narrowly, Quartilla asked to whom he belonged. When I told
her that he was a friend of mine, she said, "Well, doesn't your little friend have a
kiss for me?" With that she called him over, pawed him and kissed him a bit and then
reached her hand inside his tunic and playfully fondled that poor novice tool of his
for some time. "Tomorrow," she laughed, "this will make a fine antipasto for my
lechery. But today's entree stuffed me so full, I couldn't swallow even this little
tidbit now."

[25] Suddenly Psyche sidled up giggling, and whispered something into Quartilla's car.
"A splendid idea," said Quartilla, "I can't imagine a more opportune time for de-
flowering our little Pannychis." Immediately a rather pretty little girl--the same one
who had come with Quartilla to our rooms--was led out. I doubt that she could have
been more than seven, but with the exception of myself everybody present applauded
the idea and demanded that the marriage be consummated instantly. I was shocked,
however, and pointed out that Citon, a very bashful boy, could hardly be expected to
undergo such drudgery yet. Besides, I protested, the girl was much too young to be
assuming a woman's position.

"Pish," snorted Quartilla. "Is she any younger than I was when I had my first man?
May Juno strike me dead if I can ever remember being a virgin. When I was a little
girl, I played ducks and drakes with the little boys; as I got bigger, I applied my-
self to bigger boys, until I reached my present age--whence I think the proverb arose,
she'll bear the bull that bore the calf." Fearing that Giton might suffer something
still worse if I refused, I rose reluctantly to help with the ceremony. [26] Psyche
placed a saffron veil on the little girl's head, while a whole troop of drunken women,
led by the eunuch with a blazing torch, marched off to prepare the room for this tra-
vesty of marriage. Quartilla, flushed and excited by the gross obscenity of the
whole affair, took Giton by the hand and led him into the bedroom.

In point of fact the boy made no objection and even the little girl appeared quite
unmoved by the notion of being a bride. Finally the door was shut, the bolts shot,
and we all took up our positions around the door. Then Quartilla, standing in the
front row, treacherously cut a slit in the panel and peeked with lecherous curiosity
at their innocent childish play. With a gentle caress she drew me to the chink to
watch too, and since our faces were often close together, kept turning her lips to
me and stealing kisses.

We threw ourselves into bed and spent the remainder of the night unmolested...



V


DINNER WITH TRIMALCHIO



At last the third day had come with its prospect of a free meal and perhaps our last
meal on this earth. But by now our poor bodies were so bruised and battered that es-
cape, even if it cost us a meal, seemed preferable to staying where we were. While we
were gloomily wondering how we could avoid the orgy in store for us with Quartilla,
one of Agamemnon's slaves came up and dispelled our despair. "What's eating you?"
he asked. "Have you forgotten where you're going tonight? Trimalchio's giving the
meal. He's real swank. Got a great big clock in his dining room and a uniformed bugler
who blows a horn every hour so the old man won t forget how fast his time is slipping
away." Needless to say, we forgot our troubles fast when we heard this. We slipped
into our best clothes, and when Giton very sweetly offered to act as our servant, we
told him to attend us to the baths.

[27] There we wandered around at first without getting undressed. Or rather we went
joking around, mixing with various groups of bathers at their games. Suddenly we caught
sight of an old, bald man in a long red undershirt, playing ball with a bunch of cur-
ly-headed slave boys. It wasn't so much the boys who took our eyes--though they were
worth looking at--as the old man himself. There he stood, rigged out in undershirt and
sandals, nothing else, bouncing a big green ball the color of a leek. When he dropped
one ball, moreover, he never bothered to stoop for it, but simply took another from a
slave who stood beside him with a huge sack tossing out fresh balls to the players.
This was striking enough, but the real refinement was two eunuchs standing on either
side of the circle, one clutching a chamber pot of solid silver, the other ticking off
the balls. He was not, however, scoring the players points, but merely keeping count
of any balls that happened to drop on the ground. 'While we were gawking at these
elegant gymnastics, Menelaus came rushing up. "That's him!" he whispered, "that's the
fellow who's giving the meal. What you're seeing now is just the prelude to the show."
These words were hardly out when Trimalchio gave a loud snap with his fingers. The
eunuch came waddling up with the chamber pot, Trimalchio emptied his bladder and went
merrily on with his game. When he was done, he shouted for water, daintily dipped the
tips of his fingers and wiped his hands in the long hair of a slave.

[28] But the details of his performance would take too long to tell. We quickly un-
dressed, went into the hot baths, and after working up a sweat, passed on to the cold
showers. There we found Trimalchio again, his skin glistening all with perfumed oil.
He was being rubbed down, not with ordinary linen, but with cloths of the purest and
softest wool. During this rubdown, right before his eyes, the three masseurs were guzz-
ling away at the finest of his rare Falernian wines. In a minute, moreover, they were
squabbling and in the next second the wine had spilled all over the floor. "Tut, a
mere trifle," said Trimalchio, "they were merely pouring me a toast." He was then bun-
dled into a blazing scarlet wrapper, hoisted onto a litter and trundled off. Before him
went four runners in spangled harness and a little wheelbarrow in which the old man's
favorite rode, a little boy with a wrinkled face and bleary, crudded eyes, even uglier
than his master. A musician with a miniature flute trotted along at Trimalchio's head
and during the entire trip played into his master's ear as though whispering him little
secrets.

Drunk with admiration, we brought up the rear and Agamemnon joined us when we reached
Trimalchio's door. Beside the door we saw a sign:


　　　　　　　　　ANY SLAVE LEAVING THE PREMISES
　　　　　　WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION FROM THE MASTER
　　　　　　　　WILL RECEIVE ONE HUNDRED LASHES!


At the entrance sat the porter, dressed in that same leek-green that seemed to be the
livery of the house. A cherry-colored sash was bound around his waist and he was busily
shelling peas into a pan of solid silver. In the doorway hung a cage, all gold, and in
it a magpie was croaking out his welcome to the guests.

[29] I was gaping at all this in open-mouthed wonder when I suddenly jumped with ter-
ror, stumbled, and nearly broke my leg. For there on the left as you entered, in fresco,
stood a huge dog straining at his leash. In large letters under the painting was scrawl-
ed:


　　　　　　　　　　　　　　BEWARE OF THE DOG!


The others burst out laughing at my fright. But when I'd recovered from the shock, I
found myself following the rest of the frescoes with fascination. They ran the whole
length of the wall. First came a panel showing a slave market with everything clearly
captioned. There stood Trimalchio as a young man, his hair long and curly in slave fash-
ion; in his hand he held a staff and he was entering Rome for the first time under the
sponsorship of Minerva. In the next panel he appeared as an apprentice accountant,
then as a paymaster--each step in his career portrayed in great detail and everything
scrupulously labeled. At the end of the portico you came to the climax of the series:
a picture of Mercury grasping Trimalchio by the chin and hoisting him up to the lofty
eminence of the official's tribunal. Beside the dais stood the goddess Fortuna with a
great cornucopia and the three Fates, busily spinning out Trimalchio's life in threads
of gold, while in the back-ground a group of runners were shown working out with their
trainer. In the corner at the end of the portico was a huge wardrobe with a small built-
in shrine. In the shrine were silver statuettes of the household gods, a Venus in mar-
ble, and a golden casket containing, I was told, the clippings from Trimalchio's first
beard. I began questioning the attendant about some other frescoes in the middle.
"Scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey," he explained, "and the gladiator games given
by Laenas." [30] But there was far too little time to ask about everything that took
my eye.

We approached the dining room next where we found the steward at the door making
up his accounts. I was particularly struck by the doorposts. For fixed to the jamb were
fasces, bundles of sticks with axes protruding from them; but on the lower side the
bundles terminated in what looked like the brass ram of a ship, and on the brass this
inscription had been engraved:


　　　　　　　　TO GAIUS POMPEIUS TRIMALCIHO,
　　　　　　　　OFFICIAL OF THE IMPERIAL CULT,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　FROM HIS STEWARD
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　CINNAMUS.


Hanging from the ceiling on a long chain was a two-bracket lamp with the same inscrip-
tion, and on each of the doorposts a wooden tablet had been put up. On one of these, if
I remember rightly, this memo was written:


　　　　　　　　"The Master will be dining in town
　　　　　　　　on the 30th and 31st of December."


On the other tablet was a diagram of the orbits of the moon and the seven planets, with
the lucky and unlucky days all indicated by knobs of different colors.

We duly noted these refinements and were just about to step into the dining room when
suddenly a slave--clearly posted for this very job--shouted, "RIGHT FEET FIRST!'" Well,
needless to say, we froze. Who wants to bring down bad luck on his host by walking into
his dining room in the wrong way? However, we synchronized our legs and were just step-
ping out, right feet first, when a slave, utterly naked, landed on the floor in front
of us and implored us to save him from a whipping. He was about to be flogged, he ex-
plained, for a trifling offense. He had let someone steal the steward's clothing, worth-
less stuff really, in the baths. Well, we pulled back our right feet, faced about and
returned to the entry where we found the steward counting a stack of gold coins. We
begged him to let the servant off. "Really, it's not the money I mind," he replied with
enormous condescension, "so much as the idiot's carelessness. It was my dinner-suit
he lost, a birthday present from one of my dependents. Expensive too, but then I've al-
ready had it washed. Well, it's a trifle. Do what you want with him." [31] We thanked
him for his gracious kindness, but when we entered the dining room up ran the same
slave whom we'd just begged off. He overwhelmed us with his thanks and then, to our
consternation, began to plaster us with kisses. "You'll soon see whom you've helped,"
he said. "The master's wine will prove the servant's gratitude."

At last we took our places. Immediately slaves from Alexandria came in and poured ice
water over our hands. These were followed by other slaves who knelt at our feet and
with extraordinary skill pedicurcd our toenails. Not for an instant, moreover, during
the whole of this odious job, did one of them stop singing. This made me wonder whether
the whole menage was given to bursts of song, so I put it to the test by calling for
a drink. It was served immediately by a boy who trilled away as shrilly as the rest of
them. In fact, anything you asked for was invariably served with a snatch of song, so
that you would have thought you were eating in a concert-hall rather than a private
dining room.

Now that the guests were all in their places, the hors d'oeuvres were served, and very
sumptuous they were. Trimalchio alone was still absent, and the place of honor--reserv-
ed for the host in the modern fashion--stood empty. But I was speaking of the hors
d'oeuvres. On a large tray stood a donkey made of rare Corinthian bronze; on the don-
key's back were two panniers, one holding green olives, the other, black. Flanking the
donkey were two side dishes, both engraved with Trimalchio's name and the weight of
the silver, while in dishes shaped to resemble little bridges there were dormice, all
dipped in honey and rolled in poppyseed. Nearby, on a silver grill, piping hot, lay
small sausages, while beneath the grill black damsons and red pomegranates had been
sliced up and arranged so as to give the effect of flames playing over charcoal.

[32] We were nibbling at these splendid appetizers when suddenly the trumpets blared
a fanfare and Trimalchio was carried in, propped up on piles of miniature pillows in
such a comic way that some of us couldn't resist impolitely smiling. His head, cropped
close in a recognizable slave cut, protruded from a cloak of blazing scarlet; his neck,
heavily swathed already in bundles of clothing, was wrapped in a large napkin bounded
by an incongruous senatorial purple stripe with little tassels dangling down here and
there. On the little finger of his left hand he sported an immense gilt ring; the
ring on the last joint of his fourth finger looked to be solid gold of the kind the
lesser nobility wear, but was actually, I think, an imitation, pricked out with small
steel stars. Nor does this exhaust the inventory of his trinkets. At least he rather
ostentatiously bared his arm to show us a large gold bracelet and an ivory circlet
with a shiny metal plate.

[33] He was picking his teeth with a silver toothpick when he first addressed us. "My
friends," he said, "I wasn't anxious to eat just yet, but I've ignored my own wishes
so as not to keep you waiting. Still, perhaps you won't mind if I finish my game." At
these words a slave jumped forward with a board of juniper wood and a pair of crystal
dice. I noticed one other elegant novelty as well: in place of the usual black and
white counters, Trimalchio had substituted gold and silver coins. His playing, I might
add, was punctuated throughout with all sorts of vulgar exclamations.

We, meanwhile, were still occupied with the hors d'oeuvres when a tray was carried in
and set down before us. On it lay a basket, and in it a hen, carved from wood, with
wings outspread as though sitting on her eggs. Then two slaves came forward and, to a
loud flourish from the orchestra, began rummaging in the straw and pulling out pea-
hen's eggs which they divided among the guests. Trimalchio gave the whole performance
his closest attention. "Friends," he said, "I ordered peahen eggs to be set under
that hen, but I'm half afraid they may have hatched already. Still, let's see if we
can suck them." We were handed spoons--weighing at least half a pound apiece-- and
cracked open the eggs, which turned out to be baked from rich pastry. To tell the truth,
I had almost tossed my share away, thinking the eggs were really addled. But I heard
one of the guests, obviously a veteran of these dinners, say, "I wonder what little
surprise we've got in here.

So I cracked the shell with my hand and found inside a fine fat oriole, nicely sea-
soned with pepper.

[34] By this time Trimalchio had finished his game. He promptly sent for the same dish-
es we had had and with a great roaring voice offered a second cup of mead to anyone who
wanted it. Then the orchestra suddenly blared and the trays were snatched away from the
tables by a troupe of warbling waiters. But in the confusion a silver side dish fell
to the floor and a slave quickly stooped to retrieve it. Trimalchio, however, had ob-
served the accident and gave orders that the boy's ears should be boxed and the dish
tossed back on the floor. Immediately the servant in charge of the dishware came patter-
ing up with a broom and swept the silver dish out the door with the rest of the rubbish.
Two curly-haired Ethiopian slaves followed him as he swept, both carrying little skin
bottles like the circus attendants who sprinkle the arena with perfume, and poured wine
over our hands. No one was offered water.

We clapped enthusiastically for this fine display of extravagance. "The god of war,'
said Trimalchio, "is a real democrat. That's why I gave orders that each of us should
have a table to himself. Besides, these stinking slaves will bother us less than if we
were all packed in together."

Glass jars carefully sealed and coated were now brought in. Each bore this label:


　　　　　　　　　　　　GENUINE FALERNIAN WINE
　　　　　　　　 GUARANTEED ONE HUNDRED YEARS
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　OLD!
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　BOTTLED
　　　　　　　　　　　　　IN THE CONSULSHIP
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　OF
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　OPIMIUS.


While we wad reading the labels, Trimalchio clapped his hands for attention. "Just think,
friends, wine lasts longer than us poor suffering humans. So soak it up, it's the stuff
of life. I give you, gentlemen, the genuine Opimian vintage. Yesterday I served much
cheaper stuff and the guests were much more important." While we were commenting on it
and savoring the luxury, a slave brought in a skeleton, cast of solid silver, and fast-
ened in such a way that the joints could be twisted and bent in any direction. The ser-
vants threw it down on the table in front of us and pushed it into several suggestive
postures by twisting its joints, while Trimalchio recited this verse of his own making:

　　　　　　　　Nothing but bones, that's what we are.
　　　　　　　　　　Death hustles us humans away.
　　　　　　　　Today we're here and tomorrow we're not,
　　　　　　　　　　so live and drink while you may!

[35] The course that followed our applause failed, however, to measure up to our expect-
ations of our host, but it was so unusual that it took everybody's attention. Spaced a-
round a circular tray were the twelve signs of the zodiac, and over each sign the chef
had put the most appropriate food. Thus, over the sign of Aries were chickpeas, over
Taurus a slice of beef, a pair of testicles and kidneys over Gemini, a wreath of flowers
over Cancer, over Leo an African fig, virgin sowbelly on Virgo, over Libra a pair of
scales with a tartlet in one pan and a cheesecake in the other, over Scorpio a crawfish,
a lobster on Capricorn, on Aquarius a goose, and two mullets over the sign of the Fishes.
The centerpiece was a clod of turf with the grass still green on top and the whole thing
surmounted by a fat honeycomb. Meanwhile, bread in a silver chafing dish was being hand-
ed around by a black slave with long hair who was shrilling in an atrocious voice some
song from the pantomime called Asafoetida. With some reluctance we began to attack this
wretched fare, but Trimalchio kept urging us, "Eat up, gentlemen, eat up!"

[36] Suddenly the orchestra gave another flourish and four slaves came dancing in and
whisked off the top of the tray. Underneath, in still another tray, lay fat capons and
sowbellies and a hare tricked out with wings to look like a little Pegasus. At the corn-
ers of the tray stood four little gravy boats, all shaped like the satyr Marsyas, with
phalluses for spouts and a spicy hot gravy dripping down over several large fish swimming
about in the lagoon of the tray. The slaves burst out clapping, we clapped too and turn-
ed with gusto to these new delights. Trimalchio, enormously pleased with the success of
his little tour de force, roared for a slave to come and carve. The carver appeared in-
stantly and went to work, thrusting with his knife like a gladiator practicing to the
accompaniment of a water-organ. But all the time Trimalchio kept mumbling in a low
voice, "Carver, carver, carver carver..." I suspected that this chant was somehow con-
nected with a trick, so I asked my neighbor, an old hand at these party surprises.
"Look," he said, "you see that slave who's carving? Well, he's called Carver, so every
time Trimalchio says 'Carver, he's also saying 'Carve 'er!' and giving him orders to carve."

[37] This atrocious pun finished me: I couldn't touch a thing. So I turned back to my
neighbor to pick up what gossip I could and soon had him blabbing away, especially when
I asked him about the woman who was bustling around the room. "Her?" he said, "why,
that's Fortunata, Trimalchio's wife. And the name couldn't suit her better. She counts
her cash by the cartload. And you know what she used to be? Well, begging your Honor's
pardon, but you wouldn't have taken bread from her hand. Now, god knows how or why, she's
sitting pretty: has Trimalchio eating out of her hand. If she told him at noon it was
night, he'd crawl into bed. As for him, he's so loaded he doesn't know how much he has.
But that bitch has her finger in everything--where you'd least expect it too. A regular
tightwad, never drinks, and sharp as they come. But she's got a nasty tongue; get her
gossiping on a couch and she'll chatter like a parrot. If she likes you, you're lucky;
if she doesn't, god help you.

"As for old 'Trimalchio, that man's got more farms than a kite could flap over. And there's
more silver plate stuffed in his porter's lodge than another man's got in his safe. As for
slaves, whoosh! So help me, I'll bet not one in ten has ever seen his master. Your ordinary
rich man is just peanuts compared to him; he could knock them all under a cabbage and
you'd never know they were gone.

[38] "And buy things? Not him. No sir, he raises everything right on his own estate.
Wool, citron, pepper, you name it. By god, you'd find hen's milk if you looked around.
Now take his wool. The home-grown strain wasn't good enough. So you know what he did?
Imported rams from Tarentum, bred them into the herd. Attic honey he raises at home. Or-
dered the bees special from Athens. And the local bees are better for being crossbred
too. And, you know, just the other day he sent off to India for some mushroom spawn. E-
very mule he owns had a wild ass for a daddy. And you see those pillows there? Every
last one is stuffed with purple or scarlet wool. That boy's loaded!

"And don't sneer at his friends. They're all ex-slaves, but every one of them's rich.
You see that guy down there on the next to last couch? He's worth a cool half-million.
Came up from nowhere. Used to tote wood on his back. People say, but I don't know, he
stole a cap off a hob-goblin's head and found a treasure. He's the gods' fair-haired
boy. That's luck for you, but I don't begrudge him. Not so long ago he was just a slave.
Yes sir, he's doing all right. Just a few days ago he advertised his apartment for rent.
The ad went like this:


　　　　　　　　　APARTMENT FOR RENT AFTER THE FIRST OF JULY,
　　　　　　　　　AM BUYING A VILLA. SEE C. POMPEIUS DIOGENES.


"And you see that fellow in the freedman's seat? He's already made a pile and lost it.
What a life! But I don't envy him. After the first million the going got sticky. Right
now I'll bet he's mortgaged every hair on his head. But it wasn't his fault. He's too
honest, that's his trouble, and his crooked friends stripped him to feather their own
nests. One thing's sure: once your little kettle stops cooking and the business starts
to slide, you get the brushoff from your friends. And, you know, he had a fine, respect-
able business too. Undertaking. Ate like a king: boars roasted whole, pastry as tall as
buildings, pheasants, chefs, pastrycooks--the whole works. Why, he's had more wine
spilled under his table than most men have in their cellars. Life? Hell, it was a dream!
Then when things started sliding, he got scared his creditors would think he was broke.
So he advertised an auction:


　　　　　　　　　　　　GAIUS JULIUS PROCULUS
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　WILL HOLD
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　AN AUCTION
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　OF HIS
　　　　　　　　　　　　　SPARE FURNITURE!"


[39] By now the astrological course had been removed, the guests were gaily attacking
the wine, and there was a loud hubbub of laughing and chatter. My neighbor's pleasant
prattle, however, was interrupted by Trimalchio. Lounging back on his elbow, he burst
out: "Gentlemen, I want you to savor this good wine. Fish must swim, and that's a fact.
But I'd like to know if you were really taken in by that stuff you saw on the top tray.
Is that what you think of me? What does our Vergil say?


　　　　　　　　Is this what men report of great Ulysses?


Not on your life. At dinner, I say, there should be culture as much as food. My old mas-
ter--may his bones rest in peace--wanted me to be a man of the world and a gentleman of
culture. And I think that last course will show you there isn't much that I don't know.
Listen now, and I'll explain to you about the zodiac. This heaven, which is where the
twelve gods live, changes into twelve signs. Now sometimes it turns into the Ram, that
is, Aries. Everyone who gets himself born under the Ram owns heaps of sheep and lots of
wool; besides, his head is hard, his forehead like brass and his horns like swords. That's
why many professors and also muttonheads are born under the sign of the Ram."

We all applauded our droll astrologer and he continued. "After the Ram, the Universe
switches over to the Bull, who's sometimes called Taurus. The people who are born under
the Bull include bullies and cowboys and people who he down in soft pastures. Under the
Twins, old Gemini, you get two-horse teams, yokes of oxen, lechers who are led around by
their balls, and two-faced politicians. Cancer, or the Crab, is my sign; therefore I walk
on many legs and my possessions stretch over land and sea, for the crab is at home in both
those elements. That's why I avoided putting anything on my sign for a long time: I didn't
want my birth-sign queered. Under Leo the Lion you get gluttons and big shots; under Virgo
the Virgin you get useless women, deserters, and those who wear chains on their ankles,
fetters for men, bracelets for women. Stinger Scorpio has poisoners and murderers. Under
Archer Sagittarius you get cross-eyed thieves who cock an eye at the beets but snitch the
ham. Under Capricorn, because it means goat-horn, come men who have horns or corns; corn-
men are workers who sweat for their wages and horn-men are cuckolds all. Aquarius is a
water carrier, so under him you find innkeepers who water the wine and people who are all
wet. But Pisces is for Fishes and he gives us the fishier types of men: gape-mouthed law-
yers or just plain fish peddlers. That's why things are as they are. The universe goes
whizzing around like a millwheel and is always up to some mischief and people are either
dying or just getting born. As for the hunk of earth you saw sitting in the middle, that
was packed with meaning too. For dead in the center of everything sits old Mother Earth,
as fat as an egg, and loaded with goodies like a honeycomb."

[40] We all cheered and cried "Bravo" and swore that Aratus and Hipparchus were mere ama-
teurs, not to be compared with our host. But while we were flattering him, servants came
and draped our couches with special covers, each one entirely embroidered with hunting
scenes --nets, hunters with spears lying in ambush, and all the rest. We were wondering
what all this was leading up to, when suddenly there came a hideous uproar outside the room
and then huge Spartan mastiffs came bounding in and began to gallop around the table. Fol-
lowing the dogs came servants with a tray on which we saw a wild sow of absolutely enormous
size. Perched rakishly on the sow's head was the cap of freedom which newly freed slaves
wear in token of their liberty, and from her tusks hung two baskets woven from palm leaves:
one was filled with dry Egyptian dates, the other held sweet Syrian dates. Clustered around
her teats were little suckling pigs made of hard pastry, gifts for the guests to take home
as it turned out, but intended to show that ours was a brood-sow. The slave who stepped up
to carve, however, was not our old friend Carver who had cut up the capons, but a huge fel-
low with a big beard, a coarse hunting cape thrown over his shoulders, and his legs bound
up in cross-gaiters. He whipped out his knife and gave a savage slash at the sow's flanks.
Under the blow the flesh parted, the wound burst open and dozens of thrushes came whirring
out! But bird-catchers with limed twigs were standing by and before long they had snared
all the birds as they thrashed wildly around the room. Trimalchio ordered that a thrush be
given to each guest, adding for good measure, "Well, that old porker liked her acorns juicy
all right." Then servants stepped forward, removed the baskets hanging from the sow's nose,
and divided the dry and sweet dates out equally among the guests.

[41] Meanwhile I was desperately trying to figure out why the sow had been brought in with
that freedom cap on her head. One after another, I tried all kinds of crazy, far-fetched i-
deas; finally I mustered up my courage and asked my neighbor. "Why, gods alive,' he snorted,
"even your slave could have figured that one out. It's no riddle at all, clear as day. Look:
yesterday this sow was served for dinner, but the guests were so stuffed they let it go. Get
it? They let it go. So today naturally she comes back to the table as a free sow." I cursed
myself for being so slow and decided to ask no more questions. Altogether it was beginning
to look as though I'd never dined in good company before. During this exchange a pretty little
boy came into the room, wearing a wreath of vine leaves and ivy in his hair like a little
Bacchus or Father Liber. He did us a number of imitations of Bacchus under various forms: as
Lyaeus, Bromius, Evius, and so on. Then, warbling some of Trimalchio's poetry in a shrill so-
prano, he went around offering the guests grapes from his basket. Finally Trimalchio took no-
tice of the boy's efforts and called him over. "Come here, you baby Dionysus. Little Father
Liber, I hereby liberate you." At this the boy snatched the freedom cap from the boar's head
and stuck it on his own. Trimalchio wheeled back, laughing. "Well, gentlemen, how did you like
that? I've liberated Liber. I ve set the wine-god free. So let it flow. And drink up, gentle-
men. It's all on me!" We clapped our approval of his elaborate pun and kissed the little boy
soundly as he made the round of the couches to be congratulated on his new freedom.

At this point Trimalchio heaved himself up from his couch and waddled off to the toilet. Once
rid of our table tyrant, the talk began to flow more freely. Damas called for larger glasses
and led off himself. "What's one day? Bah, nothing at all. You turn round and it's dark. No-
thing for it, I say, but jump right from bed to table. Brrrr. Nasty spell of cold weather we've
been having. A bath hardly warmed me up. But a hot drink's the best overcoat of all; that's
what I always say. Whoosh, I must have guzzled gallons. I'm tight and no mistake. Wine's gone
right to my head..."

[42] "As for me," Seleucus broke in, "I don't take a bath every day. Your bath's a fuller; the
water's got teeth like a comb. Saps your vital juices. But once I've had a slug of mead, then
bugger the cold. Couldn't have had a bath today anyway. Had to go to poor old Chrysanthus'
funeral. Yup, he's gone for good, folded his tent forever. And a grand little guy he was;
they don't make 'em any better these days. I might almost be talking to him now. Just goes
to show you. What are men anyway but balloons on legs, a lot of blown-up bladders? Flies,
that's what we are. No, not even flies. Flies have something inside. But a man's a bubble,
all air, nothing else. And, you know, Chrysanthus might still be with us if he hadn't tried
that starvation diet. Five days and not a crumb of bread, not a drop of water, passed his
lips. Tch, tch. And now he's gone, joined the great majority. Doctors killed him. Maybe
not doctors, call it fate. What good's a doctor but for peace of mind? But the funeral was
fine, they did it up proper: nice bier, fancy drapes, and a good bunch of mourners turned out
too. Mostly slaves he'd set free, of course. But his old lady was sure stingy with the tears.
Not that he didn't lead her a hard life, mind. But women, they're a race of kites. Don't de-
serve love. You might as well drop it down a well. And old love's a real cancer..."

[43] He was beginning to be tiresome and Phileros shouted him down. "Whoa there," he cut
in, "let's talk about the living. He got what was coming to him. He lived well, he died
well. What the hell more did he want? And got rich from nothing too. And no wonder, I say.
That boy would have grubbed in the gutter for a coin and picked it out with his teeth too.
God knows what he had salted away. Just got fatter and fatter, bloated with the stuff.
Why, that man oozed money the way a honeycomb oozes honey. But I'll give you the lowdown
on him, and no frills either. He talked tough, sure, but he was a born gabber. And a real
scrapper too, regular pair of fists on legs. But you take his brother: now that's a real
man for you, friendly and generous as they come, and what's more, he knows how to put on
a spread. Anyway, as I was saying, what does our boy do but flop on his first big deal
and end up eating crow? But come the vintage and he got right back on his feet and sold
his wine at his own figure. What really gave him a boost was some legacy he got. And I
don't mind telling you, he milked that legacy for all it was worth and then some. So what
does the sap do next but pick a fight with his own brother and leave everything to a to-
tal stranger? I mean, it just shows you. Run from your kin and you run a damn long ways,
as the saying goes. Well, you know, he had some slaves and he listened to them as though
they were a lot of oracles, so naturally they took him in the end. It's like I always
say, a sucker gets screwed. And that goes double when a man's in business. But there's
a saying, it isn't what you're given, but what you can get that counts. Well, he got the
meat out of that one all his life. He was Lady Luck's fair-haired boy and no mistake.
Lead turned to gold in his hand. Of course, it's easy when the stuff comes rolling in on
its own. And you know how old he was when he died? Seventy and then some. But carried it
beautifully, hard as nails and his hair as black as a crow. I knew him for ages, and he
was horny, right to the end. By god, I'll bet he even pestered the dog. Boys were what
he really liked, but he wasn't choosy: he'd jump anything with legs. I don't blame him
a bit, you understand. He won't have any fun where he's gone now."

[44] But Ganymedes struck in, "Stuff like that doesn't matter a bit to man or beast. But
nobody mentions the real thing, the way the price of bread is pinching. God knows, I
couldn't buy a mouthful of bread today. And this damn drought goes on and on. Nobody's
had a bellyful for years now. It's those rotten officials, you take my word for it.
They're in cahoots with the bakers: you scratch me and I'll scratch you. So the little
people get it in the neck, but in the rich man's jaws it's jubilee all year. By god, if
we only had the kind of men we used to have, the sort I found here when I arrived from
Asia. Then life was something like living. Man, milk and honey day in and day out, and
the way they'd wallop those blood-sucking officials, you'd have thought old Jupiter was
having himself a tantrum. I remember old Safinius now. He used to live down by the old
arch when I was a boy. More peppercorn than man. Singed the ground wherever he went.
But honest and square and a real friend! Why, you could have matched coins with him in
the dark. And in the townhall he'd lay it right on the line, no frills at all, just square
on the target. And when he made a speech in the main square, he'd let loose like a bugle
blowing. But neat as a pin all the time, never ruffled, never spat: there was something
Asiatic about him. And you know, he always spoke to you, even remembered your name, just
as though he were one of us. And bread was dirt-cheap in his day. For a penny you got a
loaf that two men couldn't finish. Nowadays bulls' eyes come bigger than bread. But
that's what I mean, things are just getting worse and worse. Why, this place is running
downhill like a heifer's ass. You tell me, by god, the good of this three-fig official
of ours who thinks more of his graft than what's happening to us. Why, that boy's just
living it up at home and making more in a day than most men ever inherit. If we had any
balls, let me tell you, he'd be laughing out of the other side of his face. But not us.
Oh no, we're big lions at home and scared foxes in public. Why, I've practically had
to pawn my clothes and if bread prices don't drop soon, I'll have to put my houses on
the market. Mark my words, we're in for bad times if some man or god doesn't have a heart
and take pity on this place. I'll stake my luck on it, the gods have got a finger in what's
been happening here. And you know why? Because no one believes in the gods, that's
why. Who observes the fast days any more, who cares a rap for Jupiter? One and all, bold
as brass, they sit there pretending to pray, but cocking their eyes on the chalices and
counting up their cash. Once upon a time, let me tell you, things were different. The
women would dress up in their best and climb barefoot up to the temple on the hill.
Their hair was unbound and their hearts were pure and they went to beg Jupiter for rain.
And you know what happened? Then or never, the rain would come sloshing down by the
bucket, and they'd all stand there like a pack of drowned rats, just grinning away. Well,
that's why the gods have stuffed their ears, because we've gotten unreligious. The fields
are lying barren and..."

[45] "For god's sake," the ragseller Echion broke in, "cut out the damned gloom, will
you? 'Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad,' as the old peasant said when he sold
the spotted pig. Luck changes. If things are lousy today, there's always tomorrow. That's
life, man. Sure, the times are bad, but they're no better anywhere else. We're all in
the same boat, so what's the fuss? If you lived anywhere else, you'd be swearing the pigs
here went waddling around already roasted. And don't forget, there's a big gladiator
show coming up the day after tomorrow. Not the same old fighters either; they've got a
fresh shipment in and there's not a slave in the batch. You know how old Titus works.
Nothing's too good for him when he lets himself go. Whatever it is, it'll be something
special. I know the old boy well, and he'll go whole hog. Just wait. There'll be cold
steel for the crowd, no quarter, and the amphitheater will end up looking like a slaugh-
terhouse. He's got what it takes too. When the old man died --and a nasty way to die,
I'm telling you--he left Titus a cool million. Even if he spent ten thousand, he'd never
feel it, and people won't forget him in a hurry either. He's already raked together a
troupe of whirling dervishes, and there's a girl who fights from a chariot. And don't
forget that steward that Glyco caught in bed with his wife. You just wait, there'll be
a regular free-for-all between the lovers and the jealous husbands. But that Glyco's
a cheap bastard. Sent the steward down to be pulled to pieces by the wild beasts, you
know. So that just gave his little secret away, of course. And what's the crime, I'd
like to know, when the poor slave is told to do it? It's that piss-pot-bitch of his
that ought to be thrown to the bulls, by god! Still, those who can't beat the horse must
whop the saddle. But what stumps me is why Glyco ever thought old Hermogenes' brat
would turn out well anyway. The old man would have pared a hawk's claws in mid-air,
and like father, like daughter, as I always say. But Glyco's thrown away his own flesh
and blood; he'll carry the marks of this mess as long as he lives and only hell will
burn it away. Yes sir, that boy has dug his own grave and no mistake.

"Well, they say Mammaea's going to put on a spread. Mmmm, I can sniff it already.
There'll be a nice little handout all around. And if he does, he'll knock old Norbanus
out of the running for good. Beat him hands down. And what's Norbanus ever done anyway,
I'd like to know. A lot of two-bit gladiators and half-dead at that: puff at them and
they'd fall down dead. Why, I've seen better men tossed to the wild animals. A lot of
little clay statues, barnyard strutters, that's what they were. One was an old jade,
another was a clubfoot, and the replacement they sent in for him was half-dead and
hamstrung to boot. There was one Thracian with some guts but he fought by the book.
And after the fight they had to flog the whole lot of them the way the mob was scream-
ing, 'Let 'em have it!' Just a pack of runaway slaves. Well, says Norbanus, at least I
gave you a show. So you did, says I, and you got my cheers for it. But tot it up and
you'll see you got as much as you gave. So there too, and tit for tat, says I.

[46] "Well, Agamemnon, I can see you're thinking, 'What's that bore blabbing about
now?' You're the professor here, but I don't catch you opening your mouth. No, you
think you're a cut above us, don't you, so you just sit there and smirk at the way we
poor men talk. Your learning's made you a snob. Still, let it go. I tell you what.
Someday you come down to my villa and look it over. We'll find something to nibble
on, a chicken, a few eggs maybe. This crazy weather's knocked everything topsy-turvy,
but we'll come up with something you like. Don't worry your head about it, there'll
be loads to eat.

"You remember that little shaver of mine? Well, he'll be your pupil one of these
days. He's already doing division up to four, and if he comes through all right,
he'll sit at your feet someday. Every spare minute he has, he buries himself in
his books. He's smart all right, and there's good stuff in him. His real trouble
is his passion for birds. I killed three of his pet goldfinches the other day and told
him the cat had got them. He found some other hobby soon enough. And, you know,
he's mad about painting. And he's already started wading into Greek and he's keen
on his Latin. But the tutor's a little stuck on himself and won't keep him in line.
The older boy now, he's a bit slow. But he's a hard worker and teaches the others
more than he knows. Every holiday he spends at home, and whatever you give him,
he's content. So I bought him some of those big red lawbooks. A smattering of law,
you know, is a useful thing around the house. There's money in it too. He's had
enough literature, I think. But if he doesn't stick it out in school, I'm going
to have him taught a trade. Barbering or auctioneering, or at least a little law.
The only thing that can take a man's trade away is death. But every day I keep
pounding the same thing into his head: 'Son, get all the learning you can. Any-
thing you learn is money in the bank. Look at Lawyer Phileros. If he hadn't learn-
ed his law, he'd be going hungry and chewing on air. Not so long ago he was ped-
dling his wares on his back; now he's running neck and neck with old Norbanus. Take
my word for it, son, there's a mint of money in books, and learning a trade never
killed a man yet.'"

[47] Conversation was running along these lines when Trimalchio returned, wiping
the sweat from his brow. He splashed his hands in perfume and stood there for a
minute in silence. "You'll excuse me, friends," he began, "but I've been consti-
pated for days and the doctors are stumped. I got a little relief from a prescrip-
tion of pomegranate rind and resin in a vinegar base. Still, I hope my tummy will
get back its manners soon. Right now my bowels are bumbling around like a bull.
But if any of you has any business that needs attending to, go right ahead; no
reason to feel embarrassed. There's not a man been born yet with solid insides.
And I don't know any anguish on earth like trying to hold it in. Jupiter himself
couldn't stop it from coming.--What are you giggling about, Fortunata? You're the
one who keeps me awake all night with your trips to the potty. Well, anyone at
table who wants to go has my permission, and the doctors tell us not to hold it
in. Everything's ready outside--water and pots and the rest of the stuff. Take
my word for it, friends, the vapors go straight to your brain. Poison your whole
system. I know of some who've died from being too polite and holding it in." We
thanked him for his kindness and understanding, but we tried to hide our snickers
in repeated swallows of wine.

As yet we were unaware that we had slogged only halfway through this "forest of re-
finements," as the poets put it. But when the tables had been wiped--to the inevita-
ble music, of course--servants led in three hogs rigged out with muzzles and bells.
According to the headwaiter, the first hog was two years old, the second three, but
the third was all of six. I supposed that we would now get tumblers and rope dancers
and that the pigs would be put through the kind of clever tricks they perform for
the crowds in the street. But Trimalchio dispelled such ideas by asking, "Which one
of these hogs would you like cooked for your dinner? Now your ordinary country cook
can whip you up a chicken or make a Bacchante mincemeat or easy dishes of that sort.
But my cooks frequently broil calves whole." With this he had the cook called in at
once, and without waiting for us to choose our pig, ordered the oldest slaughtered.
Then he roared at the cook, "What's the number of your corps, fellow?"

"The fortieth, sir," the cook replied.

"Were you born on the estate or bought?"

"Neither, sir. Pansa left me to you in his will."

"Well," barked Trimalchio, "see that you do a good job or I'll have you demoted to the
messenger corps."

The cook, freshly reminded of his master's power, meekly led the hog off toward the
kitchen, [48] while Trimalchio gave us all an indulgent smile. "If you don't like the
wine," he said, "we'll have it changed for you. I'll know by the amount you drink what
you think of it. Luckily too I don't have to pay a thing for it. It comes with a lot
of other good things from a new estate of mine near town. I haven't seen it yet, but
I'm told it adjoins my lands at Terracina and Tarentum. Right now what I'd really
like to do is buy up Sicily. Then I could go to Africa without ever stepping off my
own property.

"But tell me," he said, turning to Agamemnon, "what was the subject of your debate
today? Of course, I'm no orator myself, but I've learnt a thing or two about law for
use around the place. And don't think I'm one of those people who look down on learn-
ing. No sir, I've got two libraries, one Greek and the other Latin. So tell us, if
you will, what your debate was about."

"Well," said Agamemnon, "it seems that a rich man and a poor man had gone to court..."

"A poor man?" Trimalchio broke in, "what's that?"

"Very pretty, very pretty," chuckled Agamemnon and then launched out into an exposi-
tion of god knows which of his debating topics.

But Trimalchio immediately interrupted him: "If that's the case, there's no argument;
if it isn't the case, then what does it matter?" Needless to say, we pointedly ap-
plauded all of Trimalchio's sallies.

"But tell me, my dear Agamemnon," continued our host, "do you remember the twelve la-
bors of Hercules or the story about Ulysses and how the Cyclops broke his thumb trying
to get the log out of his eye? When I was a kid, I used to read all those stories in
Homer. And, you know, I once saw the Sibyl of Cumae in person. She was hanging in a
bottle, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she said, 'I want to
die.'"

[49] He was still chattering away when the servants came in with an immense hog on a
tray almost the size of the table. We were, of course, astounded at the chef's speed
and swore it would have taken longer to roast an ordinary chicken, all the more since
the pig looked even bigger than the one served to us earlier. Meanwhile Trimalchio
had been scrutinizing the pig very closely and suddenly roared, "What! What's this?
By god, this hog hasn't even been gutted! Get that cook in here on the double!"

Looking very miserable, the poor cook came shuffling up to the table and admitted
that he had forgotten to gut the pig.

"You forgot?" bellowed Trimalchio. "You forgot to gut a pig? And I suppose you think
that's the same thing as merely forgetting to add salt and pepper. Strip that man!"

The cook was promptly stripped and stood there stark naked between two bodyguards,
utterly forlorn. The guests to a man, however, interceded for the chef. "Accidents
happen," they said, "please don't whip him. If he ever does it again, we promise we
won't say a word for him." My own reaction was anger, savage and unrelenting. I
could barely restrain myself and leaning over, I whispered to Agamemnon, "Did you
ever hear of anything worse? Who could forget to gut a pig? By god, you wouldn't
catch me letting him off, not if it was just a fish he'd forgotten to clean."

Not so Trimalchio, however. He sat there, a great grin widening across his face,
and said: "Well, since your memory's so bad, you can gut the pig here in front of
us all." The cook was handed back his clothes, drew out his knife with a shaking
hand and then slashed at the pig's belly with crisscross cuts. The slits widened
out under the pressure from inside, and suddenly out poured, not the pig's bowels
and guts, but link upon link of tumbling sausages and blood puddings.

[50] The slaves saluted the success of the hoax with a rousing, "LONG LIVE GAIUS!"
The vindicated chef was presented with a silver crown and honored by the offer of
a drink served on a platter of fabulous Corinthian bronze. Noticing that Agamemnon
was admiring the platter, Trimalchio said, "I'm the only man in the world who
owns genuine Corinthian bronze." I expected him to brag in his usual way that he'd
had the stuff imported directly from Corinth, but he was way ahead of me. "Per-
haps," he said, "you'd like to know why I'm the only man who owns genuine Corin-
thian. Well, I'll tell you. It's because I have it made by a craftsman of mine
called Corinthus, and what's Corinthian, I'd like to know, if not something Corin-
thus makes? And don't think I'm just a stupid half-wit. I know very well how Cor-
inthian bronze got invented. You see, when Troy was taken, there was this fellow
called Hannibal, a real swindler, and he ordered all the bronze and gold and silver
statues to be melted down in a pile. Well, the stuff melted and made a kind of mix-
ture. So the smiths came and started carting it off and turning out platters and
side dishes and little statues. And that's how real Corinthian began, a kind of
mishmash metal, and nothing on its own. If you don't mind my saying so though, I
like glass better. It doesn't stink like bronze, and if it weren't so breakable,
I'd prefer it to gold. Besides, it's cheap as cheap.

[51] "But, you know, there was once a workman who invented a little glass bottle
that wouldn't break. Well, he got in to see the emperor with this bottle as a pre-
sent. Then he asked the emperor to hand it back to him and managed to drop it on
the floor on purpose. Well, the emperor just about died. But the workman picked
the bottle back up from the floor and, believe it or not, it was dented just a lit-
tle, as though it were made out of bronze. So he pulled a little hammer out of his
pocket and tapped it back into shape. Well, by this time he thought he had Jupiter
by the balls, especially when the emperor asked him if anyone else was in on the
secret. But you know what happened? When the workman told him that nobody else
knew, the emperor ordered his head chopped off. Said that if the secret ever got out,
gold would be as cheap as dirt.

[52] "But silver's my real passion. I've got a hundred bowls that hold three or
four gallons apiece, all of them with the story of Cassandra engraved on them: how
she killed her sons, you know, and the kids are lying there dead so naturally that
you'd think they were still alive. And there's a thousand goblets too which Mummius
left my old master. There's pictures on them too, things like Daedalus locking up
Niobe in the Trojan Horse. And on my cups, the heavy ones, I've got the fights of
Hermeros and Petraites. No sir, I wouldn't take cash down for my taste in silver."

In the midst of this harangue, a slave dropped a goblet on the floor. Once he had
finished talking, Trimalchio wheeled on him and said, "Why don't you go hang your
self? You're no damn good to me." The slave began to whimper and beg for mercy. But
Trimalchio was stern: "Why come whining to me for pity? As if I got you into your
mess. Next time tell yourself not to be so damn dumb." However, we interceded once
more and managed to get the slave off. The instant he was pardoned, he began to
scamper around the table .



Then Trimalchio shouted, "Out with the water, in with the winel" We dutifully applaud-
ed the joke, and particularly Agamemnon who was an old hand at wangling return invi-
tations.

By now Trimalchio was drinking heavily and was, in fact, close to being drunk. "Hey,
everybody!" he shouted, "nobody's asked Fortunata to dance. Believe me, you never saw
anyone do grinds the way she can." With this he raised his hands over his forehead
and did an impersonation of the actor Syrus singing one of his numbers while the
whole troupe of slaves joined in on the chorus. He was just about to get up on the
table when Fortunata went and whispered something in his ear, probably a warning that
these drunken capers were undignified. Never was a man so changeable: sometimes he
would bow down to Fortunata in anything she asked; at other times, as now, he went
his own way.

[53] But it was the secretary, not Fortunata, who effectively dampened his desire to
dance, for quite without warning he began to read from the estate records as though
he were reading some government bulletin.

"Born," he began, "on July 26th, on Trimalchio's estate at Cumae, thirty male and
forty female slaves.

"Item, five hundred thousand bushels of wheat transferred from the threshing rooms
into storage.

"On the same date, the slave Mithridates crucified alive for blaspheming the guard-
ian spirit of our master Gaius.

"On the same date, the sum of three hundred thousand returned to the safe because
it could not be invested.

"On the same date, in the gardens at Pompeii, fire broke out in the house of the
bailiff Nasta . . ."

"What?" roared Trimalchio. "When did I buy any gardens at Pompeii?"

"Last year," the steward replied. "That's why they haven't yet appeared on the books."

"I don't care what you buy," stormed Trimalchio, "but if it's not reported to me with-
in six months, I damn well won't have it appearing on the books at all!"

The reading was then resumed. First came the directives of the superintendents on
various estates and then the wills of the gamekeepers, each one excluding Trimalchio
by a special clause. There followed a list of his overseers, the divorce of a freed-
woman by a nightwatchman for being caught in flagrante with an attendant from the
baths, and the banishment of a steward to Baiae. It closed with the accusation against
a cashier and the verdict in a dispute between several valets.

At long last the tumblers appeared. An extremely insipid clown held up a ladder and
ordered a boy to climb up and do a dance on top to the accompaniment of several popu-
lar songs. He was then commanded to jump through burning hoops and to pick up a big
jug with his teeth. No one much enjoyed this entertainment except Trimalchio who
claimed that the stunts were extremely difficult. Nothing on earth, he added, gave
him such pleasure as jugglers and buglers; everything else, such as animal shows and
concerts, was utter trash. "I once bought," he bragged, "several comic actors, but
I used them for doing farces and I told my flutist to play nothing but Latin songs,
the funny ones."

[54] Just at this point the ladder toppled and the boy on top fell down, landing
squarely on Trimalchio. The slaves shrieked, the guests screamed. We were not, of
course, in the least concerned about the boy, whose neck we would have been delight-
ed to see broken; but we dreaded the thought of possibly having to go into mourning
for a man who meant nothing to us at all. Meanwhile, Trimalchio lay there groaning
and nursing his arm as though it were broken. Doctors came rushing in, Fortunata at
their head, her hair flying, a goblet in her hand, and filling the room with wails
of distress. As for the boy, he was already clutching us by the legs and begging us
to intercede for him. My own reaction was one of suspicion. I was afraid, that is,
that these pleas for pity were simply the prelude to one more hoax; for the incident
of the slave who had forgotten to gut the pig was still fresh in my mind. So I start-
ed to examine the room rather uneasily, half expecting, I suppose, that the walls
would split open and god knows what contraption would appear. And these suspicions
were somewhat confirmed when they began flogging a servant for having bound up his
master's wounded arm with white, rather than scarlet, bandages. Actually, as it turn-
ed out, I was not far wrong, for instead of having the boy whipped, Trimalchio order-
ed him to be set free, so that nobody could say that the great Trimalchio had been
hurt by a mere slave.

[55] We gave this ample gesture our approval and remarked on the uncertainties of
human existence. "Yes," said Trimalchio, "it would be a shame to let an occasion like
this pass by without some enduring record of it." He then called for writing materials
and after a brief but harrowing effort produced the following lines:

We think we're awful smart, we think we're awful wise, but when we're least expecting,
comes the big surprise. Lady Luck's in heaven and we're her little toys,
so break out the wine and fill your glasses, boys!

From this beginning, the conversation went on to poetry, and for a considerable time
somebody was maintaining that the best poet of all time was the Thracian poet, Mopsus.
Then Trimalchio turned to Agamemnon and said, "Professor, what's the difference between
Cicero and Publilius in your opinion? To my way of thinking, Cicero jogs along better
but Publilius has him all beat when it comes to the message. What, after all, could be
more profound than this?

　　Extravagance and Waste have breach'd our walls,
　　and Mars' vast ramparts crumble down in ruin.
　　To please thy palate, Rome, that haughty bird,
　　the peacock, glisten in his cage to die;
　　the cock from Afric strand thy victim is;
　　upon thy plate the capon perisheth.
　　Lo, e'en the friendly stork, our peregrine,
　　blest bird of piety that stalks on stilts,
　　cold winter's refugee, who rattleth on
　　the tiles and struts the roof in sign of Spring,
　　now builds his final nest--upon the plate
　　of Greed!
　　　　　　　　Ah, and why should distant Ind produce
　　the harvest of her pearl, that berried stone?
　　That matrons should, forsooth, in baubles dress
　　and raise their shameless legs upon the couch
　　of lust?
　　　　　　　　Why, why should emeralds make
　　magnificence of green, and rubies glow
　　with coruscation of expensive fire,
　　unless sweet Chastity, among such stones,
　　might better blaze her innocence abroad?
　　0 shame, that brides in gossamer should go,
　　and filmy gauze their nakedness should glaze!

[56] "But next to literature," he continued, "which profession do you think has the
roughest time of it? To my mind, doctors and money-changers are the worst off. Doctors,
because they have to guess what's going on in the tummies of poor mankind and when the
fever comes. But doctors I despise: they're always sticking me on a diet of roast duck.
Money-changers come next because they have to detect the phony copper beneath the silver.
Now of dumb animals the ones who have things worst are oxen and sheep. Poor dumb oxen,
because it's their work that puts the bread in our mouths, and sheep because the clothes
on our backs we owe to them. And it's a dirty sham, I think, the way we eat their mutton
and wear their wool when the poor dumb sheep pay the bill. But bees are really good;
they're almost like gods, I say, because they vomit honey and pretend they got it from
Jupiter. Of course, they sting too, but that's because there's a bit of bitterness in all good
things . . 7

He had started in easing the philosophers out of their jobs when servants brought around
jars from which we all drew slips. Then the boy whose task it was read each of our slips
aloud. Every one contained some conundrum or pun which entitled us to a humorous present.
Thus when the slip SOUR SILVER SAUCES SOW was read, a leg of ham topped by a silver cruet
filled with vinegar was carried in. HEADREST earned a neck of mutton, while HINDSIGHT AND
LAMBASTING was matched by a bowl of lamb gravy with buckeyes floating around in it. HORSE^
RADISH AND PRUNES won a riding whip and a pruning knife, and several wrinkled plums and a
jar of Attic honey went to the slip reading PLUMAGE AND FLYTRAP. For GOOD FOOD FOR FOOT-
WEAR? they produced a fillet of sole broiled on the sole of a sandal. SOMETHING FOR THE
DOG, SOMETHING FOR THE FEET won a pair of rabbit-lined slippers, while MUSSELS AND SOME
LETTERS IN AN ENVELOPE received a mouse tied between two eels and a pod of peas. We chuckl-
ed at these jokes, but there were hundreds of them and I have forgotten most of them by now.

[57] Ascyltus, however, was no longer able to swallow his snickers and he finally tossed
back his head and roared and guffawed until he was almost in tears. At this one of Trimal-
chio's freedmen friends, the man just above me at the table, took offense and flared out
in wild rage. "You cheap muttonhead," he snarled, "what are you cackling about? Entertain-
ment isn't good enough for the likes of you, I suppose? You're richer, huh? And eat better
too? I'll bet! So help me, if you were down here by me, I'd stop your damn bleating!

"Some nerve he's got, laughing at us. Stinking runaway, that's what he is. A burglar. A bum.
Bah, he's not worth a good boot in the ass. By god, if I tangle with him, he won't know
where he's headed! So help me, I don't often fly off the handle like this. Still, if the
flesh is soft, I say, the worms will breed.

"Still cackling, are you? Who the hell are you to snicker? Where'd your daddy buy you? Think
you're made out of gold, eh? So that's it, you're a Roman knight? That makes me a king's
son. Then why was I a slave? Because I wanted to be. Because I'd rather be a Roman slave
than a tax-paying savage. And as I live and breathe, I hope no man thinks I'm funny. I walk
like a free man. I don't owe any man a thing. I've never been hauled into court. That's right:
no man ever had to tell me to pay up. I've bought a few little plots of land and a nice bit
of silver plate. I feed twenty stomachs, not counting the dog. I bought my wife's freedom
so no man could put his dirty paws on her. I paid a good two hundred for my own freedom.
Right now, I'm on the board for the emperor's worship, and I hope when I die I won't have
to blush for anything. But you're so damn busy sneering at us, you don't look at your own
behind. You see the lice on us but not the ticks on yourself. Nobody but you thinks we're
funny. Look at your old professor there: he appreciates us. Bah, you re still sucking tit;
you're limp leather, limper, no damn better. Oh you're rich, are you? Then cram down two
lunches; bolt two suppers, sonny. As for me, I'd rather have my credit than all your cash.
Who ever had to dun me twice? Forty years, boy and man, I spent as a slave, but no one could
tell now whether I was slave or free. I was just a curly-headed kid when I came to this
place. The town hall wasn't even built then. But I did everything I could do to please my
master. He was a good man, a real gentleman, whose fingernail was worth more than your whole
carcass. And there were some in that house who would have liked to see me stumble. But
thanks to my master I gave them the slip. Those are real trials, those are real triumphs.
But when you're born free everything's as easy as saying, 'Hurry on down.' Well, what are
you gaping at now, like a goat in vetch?"

[58] At these last words, Giton, who was sitting at our feet, went rudely off into a great
gale of whooping laughter which he had been trying to stifle for some time. Ascyltus' tor-
mentor promptly trained his fire on the boy. "So you're snorting too, are you, you frizzle-
headed scallion? You think it's time for capers, do you, carnival days and cold December?
When did you pay your freedom tax, eh? Well, what are you smirking at, you little gallows-
bird? Look, birdbait, I'll give it to you proper and the same for that master who won't
keep you in line. May I never eat bread again, if I let you off for anyone except our host
here; if it weren't for him, I'd fix you right now. We were all feeling good, nice happy
party, and then those half-baked masters of yours let you cut out of line. Like master,
like slave, I always say.

"Damnation, I'm so hopping mad, I can't stop. I'm no sorehead either, but when I let go,
I don't give a damn for my own mother. just you wait, I'll catch you out in the street
someday. You mouse, you little potato! And when I do, if I don't knock your master into
the cabbage patch, my name's not Hermeros. You can holler for Jupiter on Olympus as
loud as you like, and it won't help you one little bit. By god, I'll fix those frizzle-curls
of yours, and I'll fix your two-bit master too! You'll feel my teeth, sonny boy. And you
won't snicker then, or I don t know who I am. No, not if your beard were made out of
gold! By god, I'll give you Athena's own anger, and that goes for the blockhead who set
you free! I never learned geometry or criticism or hogwash of that kind, but I know how
to read words carved in stone and divide up to a hundred, money, measure, or weights.
Come on, I'll lay you a little bet. I'll stake a piece of my silver set. You may have
learned some rhetoric in school, but let me prove your daddy wasted his money educating
you. Ready? Then answer me this: 'I come long and I come broad. What am I?' I'll give
you a clue. One of us runs, the other stays put. One grows bigger; the other stays small.
Well, that's you, skittering around, bustling and gaping like a mouse in a jug. So either
shut up or don't bother your elders and betters who don't know you exist. Or do you think
I'm impressed by those phony gold rings of yours? Swipe them from your girl? Sweet Mer-
cury, come down to the main square in town and try to take out a loan. Then you'll see
this plain iron ring of mine makes plenty of credit. Hah, that finished you. You look
like a fox in the rain. By god, if I don't pull up my toga and hound you all over town,
may I fail in my business and die broke! So help me! And isn't he something, that profes-
sor who taught you your manners? Him a professor? A bum, that's what he is. In my time, a
teacher was a teacher. Why, my old teacher used to say, 'Now, boys, is everything in or-
der? Then go straight home. No dawdling, no gawking on the way. And don't be sassy to
your elders.' But nowadays teachers are trash. Not worth a damn. As for me, I'm grateful
to my old teacher for what he taught me..."

[59] Ascyltus was on the point of replying, but Trimalchio, charmed by his friend's elo-
quence, broke in first: "Come on now. That's enough. No more hard feelings. I want every-
one feeling good. As for you, Hermeros, don't be too hard on the boy. He's a little hot-
headed, so show him you're made of better stuff. It's the man who gives in in arguments
like this who wins every time. Besides, when you were just a little bantam strutting a-
round the yard, you were all cockadoodledoo and no damn sense. So let bygones be by-
gones. Come on, everybody, smile! The rhapsodes are going to perform for us now."

Immediately a troupe of rhapsodes burst into the room, all banging away on their shields
with spears. Trimalchio hoisted himself up on his pillows and while the rhapsodes were
gushing out their Greek poetry with the usual bombast, he sat there reading aloud in La-
tin. At the end there was a brief silence; then Trimalchio asked us if we knew the scene
from Homer the rhapsodes had just recited. "Well," he said, "I'll tell you. You see,
there were these two brothers, Ganymede and Diomedes. Now they had this sister called
Helen, see. Well, Agamemnon eloped with her and Diana left a deer as a fill-in for Helen.
Now this poet called Homer describes the battle between the Trojans and the people of a
place called Paros, which is where Paris came from. Well, as you'd expect, Agamemnon won
and gave his daughter Iphigeneia to Achilles in marriage. And that's why Ajax went mad,
but here he comes in person to explain the plot himself."

At this the rhapsodes burst into cheers, the slaves went scurrying about and promptly ap-
peared with a barbecued calf, with a cap on its head, reposing on a huge platter--it must
have weighed two hundred pounds at the very least. Behind it came Trimalchio's so-called
Ajax. He pulled out his sword and began slashing away at the calf, sawing up and down,
first with the edge and then with the flat of his blade. Then with the point of the sword
he neatly skewered the slices of veal he had cut and handed them around to the astounded
guests.

[60] Our applause for this elaborate tour de force, however, was abruptly cut short. For
all at once the coffered ceiling began to rumble and the whole room started to shake. I
jumped up in terror, expecting that some acrobat was about to come swinging down through
the roof. The other guests, equally frightened, lay there staring at the roof as though
they were waiting for a herald from heaven. Suddenly the paneling slid apart and down
through the fissure in the ceiling an immense circular hoop, probably knocked off some
gigantic cask, began slowly to descend. Dangling from the hoop were chaplets of gold and
little jars of perfume, all, we were informed, presents for us to take home. I filled my
pockets and then, when I looked back at the table, saw a tray garnished with little cakes;
in the center stood a pastry statuette of Priapus with the usual phallus propping up an
apron loaded with fruits and grapes of every variety. You can imagine how greedily we all
grabbed, but then a fresh surprise sent us off again into fresh laughter. For at the
slightest touch the cakes and fruit all squirted out jets of liquid saffron, splattering
our faces with the smelly stuff. Naturally enough, the use of the sacred saffron made us
conclude that this course must be part of some religious rite, so we all leaped to our
feet and shouted in chorus, "LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR, FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY!"
Even this act of homage, however, failed to prevent some of the guests from pilfering
the fruit and stuffing their napkins full. And I, of course, was among the chief offenders,
thinking nothing in this world too good to fill the pockets of my Giton.

Meanwhile three slaves dressed in snowy tunics had made their entrance. Two of them set
out Trimalchio's household gods, small statues with the usual gold medallion of the owner
on the chest. The third boy brought around a bowl of wine and solemnly intoned a prayer
to the gods for blessings on the house and guests. The names of his household gods,
Trimalchio told us, were Fat Profit, Good Luck, and Large Income. And because we saw all
the other guests piously kissing Trimalchio's medallion, we felt embarrassed not to do
likewise. [61] We then offered our congratulations to our host and wished him the best
of health and soundness of mind.

Trimalchio now turned to his old friend Niceros. "You used to be better company, my
friend," he said, "but now you're solemn and glum, and I don't know why. But if you'd
like to make your host happy, why not tell us the story of your famous adventure?'

Niceros was delighted to have been singled out. "So help me," he said, "but may I never
earn a thing, if I'm not ready to burst at your kind words. Well, here goes. Happiness
here we come! Though I confess I'm a bit nervous our learned professors are going to
laugh me down. Still, so what? I'll tell you my story and let them snicker. Better to
tell a joke than be one, I say."

With these "winged words" our storyteller began. "When I was still a slave, we used to
live in a narrow little street about where Gavilla's house stands now. There the gods
decreed that I should fall in love with the wife of the tavernkeeper Terentius. You rem-
ember Melissa, don't you? Came from Tarentum and a buxom little package, if ever I saw
one. But, you know, I loved her more for her moral character than her body. Whatever
I wanted, she gladly supplied, and we always went halves. I gave her everything I had,
and she'd stow it all safely away. What's more, she never cheated.

"Well, one day, down at the villa, her husband died. Needless to say, I moved heaven
and earth to get to her, for a friend in need is a friend indeed. [62] By a stroke of
real luck my master had gone off to Capua to do some odds and ends of business. So I
grabbed my chance and persuaded one of our guests to go with me as far as the fifth
milestone. He was a soldier and strong as the devil. Well, we stumbled off at cockcrow
with the moon shining down as though it were high noon. But where the road leads down
between the graves, my man went off among the tombstones to do his business, while I
sat by the road mumbling a song to keep my courage up and counting the graves. After
a while I started looking around for him and suddenly I caught sight of him standing
stark naked with all his clothes piled up on the side of the road. Well, you can ima-
gine: I stood frozen, stiff as a corpse, my heart in my mouth. The next thing I knew
he was pissing around his clothes and then, presto! he changed into a wolf. Don't
think I'm making this up. I wouldn't kid you for anything. But like I was saying, he
turned into a wolf, then started to howl and loped off for the woods. At first I
couldn't remember where I was. Then I went to get his clothes and discovered they'd
been changed into stones. By now, let me tell you, I was scared. But I pulled out my
sword and slashed away at the shadows all the way to my girlfriend's house. I arrived
as white as a ghost, almost at the last gasp, with the sweat pouring down my crotch
and my eyes bugging out like a corpse. I don't know how I ever recovered. Melissa, of
course, was surprised to see me at such an hour and said, 'If you'd only come a little
earlier, you could have lent us a hand. A wolf got into the grounds and attacked the
sheep. The place looked like a butchershop, blood all over. He got away in the end, but
we had the last laugh. One of the slaves nicked him in the throat with a spear.'

"That finished me. I couldn't sleep a wink the rest of the night and as soon as it was
light, I went tearing back home like a landlord chasing the tenants. 'When I reached
the spot where my friend's clothing had been turned into stones, there was nothing to
be seen but blood. But when I got home, I found the soldier stretched out in bed like
a poleaxed bull and the doctor inspecting his neck. By now, of course, I knew he was
a werewolf and you couldn't have made me eat a meal with him to save my own life.
You're welcome to think what you like of my story, but may the gods strike me dead if
I'm feeding you a lie."

[63] Far from doubting him, we were all dumb with astonishment. "I, for one," said
Trimalchio, "wouldn't dream of doubting you. In fact, if you'll believe me, I had
goosebumps all over. I know old Niceros and he's no liar. Nope, he's truth itself and
never exaggerates. But now I'm going to tell you a horrible story of my own, as weird
as an ass on the roof.

"When I was just a little slave with fancy curls--I've lived in the lap of luxury from
my boyhood on, as coddled as they come--my master's pet slave happened to die one
day. He was a jewel all right, a little pearl of perfection, clever as hell and good as
good. Well, while his mother was tearing out her hair and the rest of us were helping
out with the funeral, suddenly the witches started to howl. They sounded like a whole
pack of hounds on the scent of a hare. Now at that time we had a slave from Cappadocia,
a giant of a man, scared of nothing and strong as iron. That boy could have picked up
a mad bull with one hand. Well, this fellow whips out his sword and rushes outside
with his left arm wrapped in his cloak for a shield. The next thing we knew he had
stabbed one of those wild women right through the guts--just about here, heaven pre-
serve the spot! Then we heard groans and when we looked out, so help me, there wasn't
a witch to be seen. Well, our big bruiser came stumbling in and collapsed on a bed.
He was covered from head to toe with black and blue spots as though he'd been flogged,
though we knew it was that evil hand that had touched him. We shut the door and went
back to work. But when his mother went to give him a hug, she found there was nothing
there but a bundle of straw. No heart, no guts, no anything. As I see it, the witches
had made off with the body and left a straw dummy in its place. But it just goes to
show you: there are witches and the ghouls go walking at night, turning the whole world
upside down.

As for our big meathead, after the witches brought him back, he was never the same a-
gain, and died raving mad a few days later."

[64] We were, of course, dumfounded, and no less credulous than amazed. So we kissed
the table and implored the spirits who walk by night to keep to themselves and leave
us in peace when we went home from dinner that night.

I must admit that by this time I was beginning to see the lamps burning double and the
whole room seemed to be whirling around. But Trimalchio was in splendid form and turned
to another of his guests. "Come on, Plocamus," he joshed him, "won't you entertain us
with a story? You used to be better company, you know. Remember those bits from the
plays you used to recite and the songs you sang? Oh well, I suppose we're all getting
along now and we're not what we used to be. So it goes, so it goes."

"My racing days ended," declared Plocamus, "the day I got the gout. But when I was young-
er, I almost got T.B. from singing so much. Remember? The dancing and the recitations
and the good old times we had at the barber-shop? Why, except for Apelles, I doubt the
world has ever seen my equal." With that, he clapped his hand over his mouth and mumbled
some hideous doggerel which he later boasted was Greek.

Not to be outdone, Trimalchio promptly launched into an imitation of a bugler. That over,
he turned his attention to his pet slave, that cruddy-eyed little boy with hideously
stained teeth whom he called Croesus. At the moment Croesus was busily engaged in wrap-
ping up a disgustingly fat lapdog with a green shawl and at the same time trying to force
half a loaf of bread down the poor dog's throat, though the dog was on the point of
throwing up. This little tableau gave Trimalchio the brilliant idea of having Bowser,
"the guardian of my hearth and home;' as he expressed it, brought in. Immediately an im-
mense mastiff on a leash was led into the room and ordered by a kick from the porter to
lie down beside the table. Trimalchio tossed him several chunks of white bread. "Nobody
in this whole house," he declared, "loves me as much as that mutt." Croesus, instantly
jealous of this handsome praise of Bowser, dropped his lapdog to the floor and sicked
him on to yap at the big dog. Bowser naturally responded by filling the room with ear-
splitting barks and nearly tore Croesus' dog to pieces. The uproar continued until
someone knocked the chandelier onto the table, smashing all the crystal goblets and
splattering several of the guests with burning oil. Wishing to appear unruffled by the
damage, Trimalchio kissed Croesus and told him to clamber up on his shoulders. This the
boy promptly did, riding his master piggyback, beating him with the palms of his hands,
and shrieking, "Horsey, horsey, guess how many fingers I'm holding up!" For a while the
utter con-fusion and uproar silenced even Trimalchio. But at the first opportunity he
ordered a great vat of wine to be mixed and divided among the slaves who were standing
about ready to serve us. "If anyone refuses," he barked, "dump it on his head. The
day's for work, the evening's for pleasure."

[65] Following this extravagant display of kindness came a course the very memory of
which, if you will believe me, I still find sickening. For instead of the usual small
bird or thrush, each one of us was served a plump chicken and several goose eggs sport-
ing little pastry caps. Trimalchio insisted that we sample the eggs, saying that they
were nothing but geese minus the bones. Meanwhile someone was hammering at the door
and before long a carouser dressed in a splendid white robe and accompanied by a
throng of slaves made his entrance. His face was dignified and stern, so stern in
fact that I took him for the praetor, slammed my bare feet onto the cold floor and
made ready to run for it. But Agamemnon laughed at my fright and said, "Relax, you
idiot, it's only Habinnas. He's an official of the impenal cult and a mason by trade.
They say he makes first-rate tombstones."

Somewhat reassured, I sat down again but continued to observe Habinnas' entrance with
mounting amazement. He was already half-drunk and was propping himself up by holding
on to his wife's shoulders with both hands. He was literally draped in garlands of
flowers and a stream of perfumed oil was running down his forehead and into his eyes.
When he reached the place reserved for the praetor, he sat down and called for wine
and warm water. Trimalchio was delighted to see his friend in such spirits and called
for bigger glasses before asking him how he had eaten.

"Only one thing was missing," Habinnas smiled, "and that was you. My heart was really
here the whole time. But, by god, Scissa did it up brown. She put on one fine spread
for that poor slave's funeral, I'll say that for her. What's more, she set him free
after his death. And what with the 5 per cent tax, I'll bet that gesture cost her a
pretty penny. The slave himself was valued at about two thousand. Still, it was very
nice, though it cut across my grain to have to pour out half my drinks as an offering
to the poor boy's bones."

[66] "But what did they give you to eat?" Trimalchio pressed him.

"If I can remember, I'll tell you," said Habinnas. "But my memory's so bad these days,
I sometimes can't even remember my own name. Let's see, first off we had some roast
pork garnished with loops of sausage and flanked with more sausages and some giblets
done to a turn. And there were pickled beets and some wholewheat bread made without
bleach. I prefer it to white, you know. It's better for you and less constipating too.
Then came a course of cold tart with a mixture of some wonderful Spanish wine and hot
honey. I took a fat helping of the tart and scooped up the honey generously. Then
there were chickpeas and lupins, no end of filberts, and an apple apiece. I took two
apples and I've got one wrapped up in my napkin here. If I forgot to bring a little
present to my pet slave, I'd be in hot water. And oh yes, my wife reminds me: the main
course was a roast of bearmeat. Scintilla was silly enough to try some and almost
chucked up her supper. But it reminds me of roast boar, so I put down about a pound of
it. Besides, I'd like to know, if bears eat men, why shouldn't men cat bears? To wind
up, we had some soft cheese steeped in fresh wine, a snail apiece, some tripe hash,
liver in pastry boats and eggs topped with more pastry and turnips and mustard and
beans boiled in the pod and--but enough's enough. Oh yes, and they passed around a dish
of olives pickled in caraway, and some of the guests had the nerve to walk off with
three fistfuls. But we sent the ham back untasted. [67] See here, Gains, why isn't
Fortunata eating?"

"You know how she is," said Trimalchio. "Until she's put the silver away and divided
the leftovers among the servants, she won't touch even a drop of water."

"Well, if she doesn't come and eat right now," said Habinnas, "I'm leaving."

With that he started to rise and probably would have left if Trimalchio had not signal-
ed and the whole corps of slaves shouted four or five times in chorus: "FORTUNATA!"
She promptly appeared, her dress bound up so high by a pale green sash that beneath
her cherry-colored tunic I could glimpse her massive ankle-rings of twisted gold and
a pair of golden slippers. She wiped her fingers on the handkerchief she wore around
her neck and sat down on the couch beside Habinnas' wife, Scintilla. Scintilla clap-
ped her hands, Fortunata kissed her and burst out, "Why, darling, it's been just ages
since I've seen you!"

In this way the two women chattered on for some time. The next thing I knew Fortunata
was undoing the bracelets on her grotesquely fat arms and showing them off for Scin-
tilla to admire. Then she undid her anklets and finally her hair net, which she kept
insisting was woven of pure gold. Trimalchio, who was observing this byplay with in-
terest, ordered all her jewelry brought to him. "Gentlemen," he said, "I want you to
see the chains and fetters our women load themselves with; this is how we poor bas-
tards are bankrupted. By god, she must be wearing six and a half pounds of solid gold.
Still, I must admit I've got a bracelet that weighs a good ten pounds on its own.
That was the value of two or three thousandths of my profits for the year, the same
amount I give to Mercury as the patron-god of business." To prove his boast, he order-
ed a pair of scales brought in and the weights passed around for us to test. For her
part, Scintilla was not to be outdone and took off the large locket which she wore
around her neck and called her "lucky piece." Out of it she drew a pair of golden
earrings and handed them over for Fortunata's inspection. "They're a present from my
husband," she said. "Thanks to his generosity, no woman on earth has a finer pair."

"Generosity, my ass," snorted Habinnas. "You'd pester the life out of me to get a
couple of glass beans. If I had a daughter, so help me, I'd have her ears chopped
off. If it weren't for the women, things would be as cheap as dirt. But money--they
waste it like water. Swallow it cold and good and piss it hot and useless."

By this time both the women were high and sat there giggling and exchanging little
hugs and kisses, Fortunata boasting about her abilities as a housekeeper and Scint-
illa complaining of her husband's favorites and his indifference to her. At one
point during this tender scene Habinnas rose stealthily to his feet, tiptoed over
behind their couch and, grabbing Fortunata by the knees, toppled her over back-
wards onto the couch. As she fell her tunic slipped up above her knees. Fortunata
gave a piercing shriek, threw herself into Scintilla's arms and tried to hide her
blushes in her handkerchief.

[68] Once the confusion had died down, Trimalchio ordered the dessert brought on.
The servant immediately removed not merely the dirty dishes but the tables them-
selves and replaced them with fresh ones. The floor was sprinkled with saffron
sawdust and powdered mica, something I had never seen used for this purpose before.
"Behold your dessert, gentlemen, these fresh tables," said Trimalchio. "I've made
a clean sweep of everything, and that's all you get. That's what you deserve;
that's your dessert. Haw, haw. But if there's still anything in the kitchen worth
eating, boys, bring it on." Meanwhile an Alexandrian slave was passing us hot water
for our wine and at the same time doing an imitation of a nightingale, but Trimal-
chio kept muttering, "Change that stinking tune." Then the slave seated at Habinnas
feet and clearly acting on his master's orders started to chant a passage from
Vergil, the one beginning:

　　　　Meanwhile Aeneas' fleet still rode the heavy swell...

Altogether it was the most atrocious sound that ever fell on my ears. Not only was
his pronunciation barbarous, a kind of sing-song rising and falling of the pitch,
but he also jumbled in verses from some obscene farce, so that for the first time
in my life Vergil actually jarred on me. At the end, however, Habinnas clapped en-
thusiastically and said: "You wouldn't believe it, but he's never had any formal
training. I sent him off to learn from the hawkers at the fairs, and he can't be
beat at imitating muledrivers and barkers. And he's real smart, does everything:
makes shoes, cooks, bakes... In fact, he'd be perfect if he didn't have two bad
points: he's been circumcised and he snores. He's cross-eyed too, but I don't mind
that. Venus has a bit of a squint, they say. And I bought him for next to nothing..."

[69] "You haven't mentioned all the little bugger's tricks," broke in Scintilla
angrily. "He's a little pimp and a fairy, that's what he is, and someday I'll see
he's branded for it."

Trimalchio guffawed at this. "Come on, Scintilla, don't be jealous. We know what
the score is with you too. And why not, I'd like to know. Cross my heart and hope
to die, if I didn't have a few tussles in the sheets with my old master's wife too.
In fact, the old man got suspicious, so much so that he shipped me off to a farm
in the country. But stop wagging, tongue, and I'll give you some bread to munch."

At this point that damned slave of Habinnas, obviously under the impression that
we had been praising him, pulled a clay lamp with a spout out of his tunic and for
a full half hour sat there mimicking a bugler while Habinnas hummed and fiddled
his lower lip up and down in a kind of jew's harp accompaniment. Then, to crown all
this, the slave stepped out before us all and first parodied with two straws the
flutists at the plays and next, waving a whip and twisting himself in his cloak,
did an imitation of a muledriver. Habinnas called him over finally, gave him a
kiss and a glass of wine and said, "Nice work, Massa. I'll see that you get a
pair of shoes for this."

This deadly entertainment would never have ended if the servants had not brought
on another course, consisting of pastry thrushes with raisin and nut stuffing,
followed by quinces with thorns stuck in them to resemble sea urchins. We could
have put up with these dishes, if the last and most sickening course of all had
not killed our appetites completely. When it was first brought in, we took it
for a fat goose surrounded by fish and little birds of all kinds. But Trimalchio
declared, "My friends, everything you see on that platter has been made from
one and the same substance." I, of course, not the man to be deceived by ap-
pearances, had to turn and whisper to Agamemnon, "I'd be very surprised if every-
thing there hadn't been made out of plain mud or clay. At the Carnival in Rome,
I've seen whole meals made from stuff like that."

[70] I was still whispering when Trimalchio said, "As surely as I hope to get
richer--but not fatter, please god--my cook baked all that junk out of roast
pork. In fact, I doubt if there's a more valuable chef in the whole world. Just
say the word, and he'll whip you up a fish out of sowbelly, pigeons out of ba-
con, cloves from ham and chicken from pigs' knuckles. That's why I've named
him Daedalus, and it suits him to a T. And because he's an inventor and a gen-
ius, I've brought him back some fine cutlery from Rome." He then ordered the
knives brought in and passed around for us to admire and inspect. He also
gave us permission to test the blades on the stubble of our cheeks.

Suddenly two slaves came rushing in looking as though they'd had an argument
while drawing water at the well; at least they were carrying large jars on their
backs and were obviously furious with each other. Trimalchio offered to act as
arbiter of their argument but they refused to abide by his decision and began
to pummel each other with their sticks. We were appalled by this drunken inso-
lence but nonetheless kept our eyes glued to the fight. Suddenly we noticed that
oysters and mussels were sloshing over from the jugs and a slave caught them as
they fell and handed them around in a dish. Unwilling to be outstripped in ex-
travagance, the clever chef matched the oysters by bringing around hot buttered
snails on a silver grill and singing all the time in a hideously dismal, quavering
voice.

What happened next was an extravagance so fantastic that I am almost embarrass-
ed to mention it. However, young slaves with long flowing curls came around to
each of us in turn, wreathed our legs and ankles with garlands of flowers and
anointed our feet with perfume from a silver bowl. Then a generous amount of
this same perfume was poured into the oil lamps and even into the wine bowl.

By now Fortunata was almost desperate to dance and Scintilla was clapping her
hands even more frequently than she opened her mouth. Suddenly Trimalchio had
an idea. "You there, Philargyrus," he called out to a slave, "I know you're a
fan of the Greens in the races, but come and sit with us anyway. You too, Cario,
and tell your wife to do the same." Well, you can imagine what happened. The
dining room was by now so packed with slaves that in the rush for seats the
guests were almost shoved bodily from the couches. For my part, I had to endure
seeing the cook--the one who had made the goose out of pork and who reeked of
pickles and hot sauce--installed just above me on the couch. Worst of all, not
content with a place at the table, he had to do an imitation of the tragic actor
Ephesus and then had the brass to bet his master that the Greens would win the
next race in the Circus.

[71] But Trimalchio was charmed by the challenge. "My friends," he brayed,
"slaves are human too. They drink the same mother's milk that we do, though an
evil fate grinds them down. But I swear that it won't be long --if nothing hap-
pens to me--before they all taste the good water of freedom. For I plan to free
them all in my will. To Philargyrus here I leave a farm and his woman. Cario in-
herits a block of flats and the tax on his freedom and his bed and bedding. To
my dear Fortunata I leave everything I have, and I commend her to the kindness
of my friends. But I'm telling you the contents of my will so my whole house-
hold will love me as much when I'm still alive as after I'm dead."

Once the slaves heard this, of course, they burst out with cheers and effusive
thanks. But Trimalchio suddenly began to take the whole farce quite seriously and
ordered his will brought out and read aloud from beginning to end while the slaves
sat there groaning and moaning. At the close of the reading, he turned to Habin-
nas. "Well, old friend, will you make me my tomb exactly as I order it? First, of
course, I want a statue of myself. But carve my dog at my feet, and give me gar-
lands of flowers, jars of perfume and every fight in Petraites' career. Then,
thanks to your good offices, I'll live on long after I'm gone. In front, I want my
tomb one hundred feet long, but two hundred feet deep. Around it I want an or-
chard with every known variety of fruit tree. You'd better throw in a vineyard
too. For it's wrong, I think, that a man should concern himself with the house
where he lives his life but give no thought to the home he'll have forever. But
above all I want you to carve this notice:

　　　　　　THIS MONUMENT DOES NOT PASS INTO
　　　　　　　　　THE POSSESSION OF MY HEIRS.

In any case I'll see to it in my will that my grave is protected from damage af-
ter my death. I'll appoint one of my ex-slaves to act as custodian to chase off
the people who might come and crap on my tomb. Also, I want you to carve me
several ships with all sail crowded and a picture of myself sitting on the judge's
bench in official dress with five gold rings on my fingers and handing out a
sack of coins to the people. For it's a fact, and you're my witness, that I gave
a free meal to the whole town and a cash handout to everyone. Also make me a
dining room, a frieze maybe, but however you like, and show the whole town cele-
brating at my expense. On my right I want a statue of Fortunata with a dove in
her hand. And oh yes, be sure to have her pet dog tied to her girdle. And don't
forget my pet slave. Also I'd like huge jars of wine, well stoppered so the wine
won't slosh out. Then sculpt me a broken vase with a little boy sobbing out his
heart over it. And in the middle stick a sundial so that anyone who wants
the time of day will have to read my name. And how will this do for the
epitaph?

　　　　　　HERE LIES GAIUS POMPEFUS TRIMALCHIO
　　　　　　　　　　　　 MAECENATIANUS,
　　　　　　VOTED IN ABSENTIA AN OFFICIAL OF THE
　　　　　　　　　　　　 IMPERIAL CULT.
　　　　　　　　HE COULD HAVE BEEN REGISTERED
　 　IN ANY CATEGORY OF THE CIVIL SERVICE AT ROME
　　　　　　　　　　　　BUT CHOSE OTHERWISE.
　　　　　　　　　　　　PIOUS AND COURAGEOUS,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　A LOYAL FRIEND,
　　　　　　　　　　　　HE DIED A MILLONAIRE,
　　　　　　THOUGH HE STARTED LIFE WITH NOTHING.
　　　　　　LET IT BE SAID TO HIS ETERNAL CREDIT
　　　　 THAT HE NEVER LISTENED TO PHILOSOPHERS.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　 PEACE TO HIM.
　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　FAREWELL.

[72] At the end he burst into tears. Then Fortunata started wailing, Habinnas be-
gan to cry, and every slave in the room burst out sobbing as though Trimalchio
were dying then and there. The whole room throbbed and pulsed to the sound of
mourning: I was almost in tears myself, when Trimalchio suddenly cried, "We all
have to die, so let's live while we're waiting! Come on, everybody, smile, be hap-
py. We'll all go down to the bath for a dip. The water's hot as an oven."

"Hurrah!" shouted Habinnas. "We'll make one day do the work of two!" With that he
leaped up in his bare feet and ran after Trimalchio who was clapping his hands
with approval and excitement.

I turned to Ascyltus. "Well, what do you think? As for me, the mere sight of a
bath would finish me off."

"Pretend to go along," he whispered back, "and when they head for the baths,
we'll make off in the confusion."

Agreed on our strategy, we followed Giton's lead through the portico to the main
entrance. There, however, we were given a deafening welcome by the chained watch-
dog, and his furious barking and growling so terrified Ascyltus that he tumbled
backwards into the fishpond. The mere painting of that same watchdog had nearly
been my ruin earlier, and the real thing frightened me so horribly that, between
my fear and my drunkenness, I managed to fall into the pool myself while trying
to haul Ascyltus out. Fortunately for us the porter soon appeared, which somewhat
calmed the dog. Finally the porter succeeded in dragging us both, wet and shiv-
ering, out of the pool to terra firma. Meanwhile Giton had prudently made friends
with the dog by tossing him all the tidbits we'd carefully saved from supper, and
bribed by these offerings, the dog had finally stopped barking. Utterly soaking
and shaking all over, we asked the porter to open the gate and let us out. "You're
badly mistaken, gentlemen,' he replied, "if you think you can leave by the same
way you came. No guest in this house ever goes out by the same door again.
There's one way in and another way out."

[73] So what were we poor devils to do now, trapped in this strange labyrinth of
a place? As it was, we would have given anything in the world to be standing in a
hot bath. At last, however, we succeeded in persuading the porter to lead us to
the baths. There we stripped off our soaking clothes and went in, leaving Giton
at the entrance so he could dry our clothes over the bath furnace.

The bath itself was narrow and shaped like a coldwater cistern, and we found Tri-
malchio standing in the middle of the pool. But even here there was no escape
from his revolting bragging. As for himself, he was saying, he preferred to bathe
in private, away from the crowd. In this very spot, moreover, there once used to
be a bakery which he had bought out, etc., etc. Finally when simple exhaustion
forced him to sit down, he became fascinated by the weird acoustics of the vault-
ed room and began in a drunken bass to murder some of Menecrates' songs. At least
I was told by those who pretended to understand his gibberish that they belonged
to Menecrates' repertoire. Meanwhile some of the other guests were cavorting a-
round the edge of the pool and screeching out popular songs. Others, holding
their hands behind their backs, were trying to pick up rings from the floor with
their teeth, and still others, kneeling down on the ground, were attempting to
arch themselves backward until they touched their toes. Leaving the drunkards to
their games, we went on ahead and sampled the hot bath which had been drawn for
Trimalchio.

In no time at all the water had cleared the wine fumes from our heads, and we were
taken into a second dining room where Fortunata had laid out some of her prize pos-
sessions. There was a number of curious lamps, but I particularly remember several
figurines of fishermen in bronze and some tables of solid silver covered with gild-
ed goblets into which fresh wine was being strained before our eyes. "My friends,"
said Trimalchio, apropos of nothing, "my pet slave is having his first shave today.
He's a good boy and a model of thrift. So let's celebrate. We'll drink until dawn!"

[74] Pat to these last words, a cock ominously crowed somewhere. Alarmed by the co-
incidence, Trimalchio superstitiously ordered the servants to pour some wine under
the table and even to sprinkle the lamps with wine. Then he slipped his ring from
his left hand to his right and said, "Buglers don't bugle for kicks, and that cock-
crow means there's a fire nearby or somebody's died. Don't let it be bad luck for
us, please heaven. Whoever fetches me that calamity-crowing rooster first, gets a
fat reward." In half a minute, somebody had brought in the rooster from somewhere,
and Trimalchio promptly ordered it cooked. The chef, Daedalus, that culinary genius
who had whisked up birds and fish from the leg of pork, beheaded the bird and toss-
ed it into a pot. And while the cook drew off the boiling broth, Fortunata ground
up the pepper in a little wooden mill.

We were sampling this unexpected snack, when Trimalchio suddenly remembered that
the servants had not yet eaten. "What?" he roared, "you haven't eaten yet? Then
off with you. Go eat and send in another shift to take your places." So a fresh
shift of slaves soon appeared at the door, all shouting, "Greetings, Gaius!" while
the first shift went out with a cry of "Goodbye, Gains!"

At this moment an incident occurred on which our little party almost foundered.
Among the incoming slaves there was a remarkably pretty boy. Trimalchio literal-
ly launched himself upon him and, to Fortunata's extreme annoyance, began to cov-
er him with rather prolonged kisses. Finally, Fortunata asserted her rights and
an to abuse him. "You turd!" she shrieked, "you hunk of filth." At last she used
the supreme insult: "Dog!" At this Trimalchio exploded with rage, reached for a
wine cup and slammed it into her face. Fortunata let out a piercing scream
and covered her face with trembling hands as though she'd just lost an eye.
Scintilla, stunned and shocked, tried to comfort her sobbing friend in her
arms, while a slave solicitously applied a glass of cold water to her livid
cheek. Fortunata herself hunched over the glass heaving and sobbing.

But Trimalchio was still shaking with fury. "Doesn't that slut remember what
she used to be? By god, I took her off the sale platform and made her an honest
woman. But she blows herself up like a bullfrog. She's forgotten how lucky she
is. She won't remember the whore she used to be. People in shacks shouldn't
dream of palaces, I say. By god, if I don't tame that strutting Cassandra, my
name isn't Trimalchio! And to think, sap that I was, that I could have married
an heiress worth half a million. And that's no lie. Old Agatho, who sells per-
fume to the lady next door, slipped me the word: 'Don't let your line die out,
old boy,' he said. But not me. Oh no, I was a good little boy, nothing fickle
about me. And now I've gone and slammed the axe into my shins good and proper.
But someday, slut, you'll come scratching at my grave to get me back! And just
so you understand what you've done, I'll remove your statue from my tomb.
That's an order, Habinnas. No sir, I don't want any more domestic squabbles in
my grave. And what's more, just to show her I can dish it out too, I won't
have her kissing me on my deathbed."

[75] After this last thunderbolt, Habinnas begged him to calm himself and for-
give her. "None of us is perfect," he said, "we're men, not gods." Scintilla
burst into tears, called him her dear dear Gaius and implored him by every-
thing holy to forgive Fortunata. Finally, even Trimalchio began to blubber.
"Habinnas," he whined, "as you hope to make a fortune, tell me the truth; if
I've done anything wrong, spit right in my face. So I admit I kissed the boy,
not because of his looks, but because he's a good boy, a thrifty boy, a boy
of real character. He can divide up to ten, he reads at sight, he's saved his
freedom price from his daily allowance and bought himself an armchair and two
ladles out of his own pocket. Now doesn't a boy like that deserve his master's
affection? But Fortunata says no.--Is that your idea, you high-stepping bitch?
Take my advice, vulture, and keep your own nose clean. Don't make me show my
teeth, sweetheart, or you'll feel my anger. You know me. Once I make up my
mind, I'm as stubborn as a spike in wood.

"But the hell with her. Friends, make yourselves comfortable. Once I used to
be like you, but I rose to the top by my ability. Guts are what make the man;
the rest is garbage. I buy well, I sell well. Others have different notions.
But I'm like to bust with good luck.--You slut, are you still blubbering? By
god, I'll give you something to blubber about.

"But like I was saying, friends, it's through my business sense that I shot up.
Why, when I came here from Asia, I stood no taller than that candlestick there.
In fact, I used to measure myself by it every day; what's more, I used to rub
my mouth with lamp oil to make my beard sprout faster. Didn't do a bit of
good, though. For fourteen years I was my master's pet. But what's the shame
in doing what you're told to do? But all the same, if you know what I mean,
I managed to do my mistress a favor or two. But mum's the word: I'm none of
your ordinary blowhards.

[76] "Well, then heaven gave me a push and I became master in the house. I
was my master's brains. So he made me joint heir with the emperor to every-
thing he had, and I came out of it with a senator's fortune. But we never
have enough, and I wanted to try my hand at business. To cut it short, I had
five ships built. Then I stocked them with wine--worth its weight in gold at
the time--and shipped them off to Rome. I might as well have told them to go
sink themselves since that's what they did. Yup, all five of them wrecked.
No kidding. In one day old Neptune swallowed down a cool million. Was I lick-
ed? Hell, no. That loss just whetted my appetite as though nothing had hap-
pened at all. So I built some more ships, bigger and better and a damn sight
luckier. No one could say I didn't have guts. But big ships make a man feel
big himself. I shipped a cargo of wine, bacon, beans, perfume and slaves.
And then Fortunata came through nicely in the nick of time: sold her gold and
the clothes off her back and put a hundred gold coins in the palm of my hand.
That was the yeast of my wealth. Besides, when the gods want something done,
it gets done in a jiffy. On that one voyage alone, I cleared about five hun-
dred thousand. Right away I bought up all my old master's property. I built
a house, I went into slave-trading and cattle-buying. Everything I touched
just grew and grew like a honeycomb. Once I was worth more than all the peo-
ple in my home town put together, I picked up my winnings and pulled out. I
retired from trade and started lending money to ex-slaves. To tell the truth,
I was tempted to quit for keeps, but on the advice of an astrologer who'd just
come to town, I decided to keep my hand in. He was a Greek, fellow by the name
of Serapa, and clever enough to set up as consultant to the gods. Well, he
told me things I'd clean forgotten and laid it right on the line from A to Z.
Why, that man could have peeked into my tummy and told me everything except
what I'd eaten the day before. You'd have thought he'd lived with me all his
life.

[77] "Remember what he said, Habinnas? You were there, I think, when he told
my fortune. 'You have bought yourself a mistress and a tyrant,' he said, 'out
of your own profits. You are unlucky in your friends. No one is as grateful
to you as he should be. You own vast estates. You nourish a viper in your bo-
som.' There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you, but according to him, I have
thirty years, four months, and two days .left to live. And soon, he said, I
am going to receive an inheritance. Now if I could just add Apulia to the
lands I own, I could die content.

"Meanwhile, with Mercury's help, I built this house. As you know, it used to
be a shack; now it's a shrine. It has four dining rooms, twenty bedrooms, two
marble porticoes, an upstairs dining room, the master bedroom where I sleep,
the nest of that viper there, a fine porter's lodge, and guestrooms enough for
all my guests. In fact, when Scaurus came down here from Rome, he wouldn't put
up anywhere else, though his father has lots of friends down on the shore who
would have been glad to have him. And there are lots of other things I'll show
you in a bit. But take my word for it: money makes the man. No money and you're
nobody. But big money, big man. That's how it was with yours truly: from mouse
to millionaire.

"In the meantime, Stichus," he called to a slave, "go and fetch out the clothes
I'm going to be buried in. And while you're at it, bring along some perfume and
a sample of that wine I'm having poured on my bones."

[78] Stichus hurried off and promptly returned with a white grave-garment and a
very splendid robe with a broad purple stripe. Trimalchio told us to inspect them
and see if we approved of the material. Then he added with a smile, "See to it,
Stichus, that no mice or moths get into them, or I'll have you burned alive. Yes
sir, I'm going to be buried in such splendor that everybody in town will go out
and pray for me." He then unstoppered a jar of fabulously expensive spikenard and
had us all anointed with it. "I hope," he chuckled, I like this perfume as much
after I'm dead as I do now." Finally he ordered the slaves to pour the wine into
the bowl and said, "Imagine that you're all present at my funeral feast."

The whole business had by now become absolutely revolting. Trimalchio was ob-
viously completely drunk, but suddenly he had a hankering for funeral music too
and ordered a brass band sent into the dining morn. Then he propped himself on
piles of cushions and stretched out full length along the couch. "Pretend I'm
dead," he said, 'say something nice about me." The band blared a dead march,
but one of the slava belonging to Habinnas--who was, incidentally, one of the
most respectable people present--blew so loudly that he woke up the entire
neighborhood. Immediately the firemen assigned to that quarter of town, think-
ing that Trimalchio's house was on fire, smashed down the door and rushed in
with buckets and axes to do their job. Utter confusion followed, of course,
and we took advantage of the heaven-sent opportunity, gave Agamemnon the
slip, and rushed out of there as though the place were really in flames.



VI


GITON, ASCYLTUS, AND I AGAIN



[79] We had no torch to light us on our way as we wandered, and the lateness
of the hour--it was now the dead of night--precluded all hope of meeting some-
one with a light. Worse still, we were drunk and so unfamiliar with the area
that even in brood daylight we would have lost our way. So for nearly an hour
we stumbled about. dragging our bleeding feet over the shards and splinters of
broken crockery scattered along the streets, and it was only Giton's remark-
able act of foresight which saved us in the end. Terrified of getting lost
even in daylight, the boy had shrewdly blazed every column and pilaster along
our route with chalk, and now, even throuh the pitch blackness, the blazings
shone brightly enough to keep us on our path. At Last we reached the inn, only
to find that our ordeal was not yet over. For the old landlady had spent the
night getting drunk with her boarders and I doubt she would have stirred even
if you set the bed on fire. Indeed, we would have been doomed to spending the
night on the doorstep if one of Trimalchio's agents had not happened to come with
a convoy of ten wagons. For short time he pounded and hammered at the door;
then, getting no answer, he smashed it down and we entered through the breach.

　　　　O gods in heaven, what a night we kept,
　　　　how soft the bed? Together warmed, we slept
　　　　so twined in love, so crossed upon a kiss,
　　　　it seemed his soul was mine and mine was his.
　　　　Goodbye, I thought, to every grief of man.
　　　　Farewell, all care!
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--That night any doom began.

Alas, I boasted of my happiness too soon. For the instant my drunken hands re-
laxed their grip on Giton, Ascyltus, that wizard of my destruction, ravished the
boy away in the darkness to his own bed and took his pleasure of another man's
love. Whether Giton felt nothing at all. or merely pretended not to notice, I
do not know: but all night long, oblivious of every moral law, every human right,
he lay with Ascyltus in adulterous embrace. Waking, I went groping with my hand
for the boy's body in the bed and found, O gods, my treasure stolen! For one in-
stant--if the word of a lover can he believed--I was tempted to run myself
through with my sword and join, as the poets say,

　　　　that sleep I slept to the endless sleep of death.

But in the end prudence prevailed. I slapped Giton awake, and fixing Ascyltus
with a look of terrible fury, I cried, "Since, in your pervasity, you have brok-
en your promise and trampled upon our friendship, pack your be belongings and
leave. Go stain some other bed with your adulteries.

He made no objection, and we divided our spoils with painstaking fairness. Then
he said: "Very well. Now we split the boy."

[80] I took this as merely some feeble parting joke, but the next thing I knew
he had wrenched out his sword with fratricidal fury. "No longer, miser," he
cried, "shall you hunch over your treasure in lonely lust. Either give me my
share, or I'll cut off my piece with my sword in revenge."

I pulled out my sword, threw my cloak about my arm and prepared to give battle.
Leaping between us as we raved, poor Giton took us by the knees in turn, and
with the tears streaming down his face implored us not to let that humble tav-
ern witness a new Thebaid, nor to soil with each other's blood the sanctity of
a glorious friendship. "If you must have murder, he cried, "behold, I offer
you my throat, bared to your blow; plunge your swords home; kill me, for it
was on my account that you broke your word as friends."

Touched by this pitiful entreaty, we put our swords away. For his part, Ascyl-
tus promptly proposed a solution to our problem. "Let the boy," he said, "fol-
low the one he prefers. Let him have a free choice of his own lover." Convinc-
ed that a relationship as old as Giton's and mine was like a bond of blood, un-
breakable, I accepted without fear. In fact, I fairly jumped at the proposal
and the decision was referred to the judge without delay. With no hesitation,
without even the pretense of hesitation, the boy rose and chose--Ascyltus!
Thunderstruck by this bolt from the blue, I dropped my sword and collapsed on
the bed. Had I not begrudged my enemy a total triumph, I would have done away
with myself then and there. Ascyltus, flushed with success, swaggered out with
his winnings, leaving me, once the dearest of his friends, the companion of his
every joy and sorrow, alone with my anguish and despair, in a strange land, de-
jected.

　　　　Friendship lasts while there's profit in the name.
　　　　The dice are fickle; fortune spins about.
　　　　But oh, my smiling friends of better days,
　　　　where was your love, when my luck ran out?
　　　　The comic actors strut the stage, bow and grin.
　　　　The cast: old Moneybags, Father and Son.
　　　　The farce ends, the smiles come off, revealing
　　　　the true face below, the bestial, leering one.





[81] My suicidal frenzy soon vanished. But fearing that Agamemnon's assistant,
Menelaus, might come up and find me in my room alone and so compound my mis-
eries, I packed my possessions and went with my grief to a lonely lodging house
along the shore. There, for three days I shut myself up alone, tasting over and
over again all my wrenching loneliness and humiliation. Again and again I beat my
breast; my heaving lungs were weak from sobbing and my sighs and groans rose
so frequently and so deeply that I could barely give voice to my grief. Over and
over again I cried aloud:

"O gods, why could not the earth have swallowed me up, or this sea that rages
so wildly even against the innocent? Was it for this that I fled from justice, that
I deserted the ring and murdered my host? Is this the reward of all my courage
and my crimes--to be abandoned, an outcast, a beggar, in a cheap inn in a Greek
town? And who is the author of my loneliness? A young man polluted with every per-
version and vice; a man who by his own admission deserves to be banished; who
paid for his freedom with his debauchery and his debauchery with his freedom;
whose body is bought as one buys a ticket; who was treated like a woman even by
those who knew him to be a man! And what of his partner in crime? A little boy who
gave up his trousers for skirts; whose mother persuaded him never to be a man;
who played the part of a girl in a prison for slaves; who broke his word, destroy-
ed a friendship sanctified by time and usage to go romping in another bed, and
then--O unspeakable shame!--sold his all, like a whore, for one night's work! And
now the lovers lie all night tangled in each other's arms, and when their lust
has run its course, perhaps they mock me, jeering at my loneliness. By god, but
they shall pay me for it! Either I am no free man, or they shall pay me for this
crime with their own lives!"

[82] With that, I belted on my sword and sat down to a good meal as a precaution
against losing my battle through simple weakness. Then I dashed down into the
street and began to race like a madman up and down through the arcades and por-
ticoes. My face was taut with fury, images of blood and slaughter kept pounding
through my head, and my hand clutched convulsively at the hilt of my sword. Sud-
denly some soldier--though deserter or plain thief was probably what he was--
caught sight of me. You there, soldier," he shouted, "what's your regiment? Who's
your commanding officer?" With splendid presence of mind, I promptly supplied him
with a fictitious regiment and imaginary officers. "Since when," he asked me, "do
soldiers in your army do their marching in white shoes?" At this my confusion and
trembling gave the show away and he ordered me to surrender my sword to him and
to look sharper next time. In this way, cheated of both my sword and my revenge,
I made my way back to my room. Gradually, however, my temper began to cool and
in a short time I was feeling quite grateful to him for his high-handedness in taking
away my sword.



　　Knee-deep in water, the ripe fruit dangling overhead,
　　　poor Tantalus stands, devoured by his need.
　　So the miser too, I think, must look, licking
　　　with dry tongue, unsatisfied, the taste of greed.



There is little point in expecting much of your own projects, when Fate has
projects of her own.



VII


I MEET EUMOLPUS



[83] In this way I entered a gallery filled with a superb collection of paint-
ings of remarkable range and variety. There were several by Zeuxis, still un-
touched by the injury of time, and two or three sketches by Protogenes, so vivid
and true to life that I touched them with almost a shudder of admiration. There
was also a piece by Apelles, the one the Greeks call the "One-legged Goddess,"
before which I knelt with a feeling of almost religious veneration. The human
figures were all executed with such striking naturalness and exquisite delicacy
that it seemed as though the artist had painted their souls as well. In one of
them the eagle was ravishing the shepherd of Ida away to heaven; another showed
Hylas, splendid in his innocence, rejecting the advances of the passionate Nai-
ad. Further on, I saw Apollo cursing his hands for the murder of Hyacinth and
wreathing his unstrung lyre with the blossoms of the newborn flower. But sur-
rounded by these images of painted lovers, I cried out in lonely anguish, "So
even the gods in heaven are touched by love! Jupiter himself found in the skies
no goddess worthy of his passion, but came down to earth to sin; yet he at least
never harmed or injured another man. The Nymph who ravished Hylas would have mast-
ered her passion had she known that Hercules would come back to reclaim his own.
Apollo made his Hyacinth live once more in the form of a flower. And all the
myths alike tell of passion satisfied without a rival, while I have taken as my
companion a traitor, a man more cruel than Lycurgus himself.'

But while I stood there telling my sorrows to the empty air, an old man with flow-
ing white hair entered the gallery. From his seedy clothes and his haunted, tor-
tured face with its indefinable aura of greatness, I instantly recognized him as
being one of that class of writers whom rich men despise and hate.

"I am a poet, sir," he said, introducing himself, "and one, I like to think, of
no ordinary talent, at least if prizes and crowns of laurel are any indication
of genius. Though, needless to say, I recognize the regrettable part played by
influence and connections these days in rewarding the unworthy."

"Then why are you so shabbily dressed?" I asked him. "For that very reason," he
replied. "Selfless devotion to the arts has never yet made any man rich:

　　　　　　Say merchant: you're talking of money.
　　　　　　Say soldier, and valor is sold.
　　　　　　Good money's the gigolo's meaning.
　　　　　　The toady's lies are gilded with gold.

　　　　　　But poets are poor by profession:
　　　　　　alone, in their rags, in the cold,
　　　　　　they stand at the grave of the arts
　　　　　　and lower the Ages of Gold.

[84] No, there's no doubt about it. Any man these days who takes a firm stand a-
gainst corruption and tries to walk the straight and narrow path promptly finds
himself hated by all those who differ from him, since no one can afford to like
what differs from himself. Those, moreover, whose only passion in life is the mak-
ing of money are unwilling that any other profession should be more highly regard-
ed than their own. Therefore they persecute the lovers of literature in every way
possible in order to demonstrate their inferiority to businessmen and the makers
of money..."



"I don't know why, but Genius has always had Poverty as his sister."



"I only wish," I said, "that the enemy who has forced me to become a celibate had
the goodness to relent. But he is a veteran of vice, cleverer than the pimps them-
selves."



[85] "'When I was in Asia," Eumolpus began, "on work connected with the administra-
tion of finance there, I was billeted in a private house in Pergamum. My stay there
was a delightful one. Not only were my accommodations both comfortable and civiliz-
ed, but my host's son was a boy of extraordinary beauty. Under the circumstances,
my strategy, as you may have guessed, was to become the boy's lover without in any
way arousing the father's suspicions. So whenever the conversation at dinner happen-
ed to touch on pederasty, I affected to be so scandalized and protested so vigorous-
ly that my modesty was offended even by the mere mention of such things, that every-
one, and especially the boy's mother, took me for some sort of philosophical saint.
In no time at all, on the pretext of keeping possible seducers from setting foot in
the house, I was soon chaperoning the boy on his way to the gymnasium, supervising
his studies, and acting as his adviser and moral tutor.

"One day, as it happened, we were taking our rest in the dining room, since a public
holiday had cut short our studies and the fatigue that comes of too much merrymaking
had left us too tired even to climb upstairs to bed. Towards midnight I suddenly no-
ticed that the boy was not sleeping. With a trembling voice I made my prayer to Ven-
us: 'O goddess,' I whispered, 'if I can kiss this sleeping boy without his noticing
it, tomorrow I will present him with a pair of doves.' Tempted by the price I put on
my pleasure, the little impostor started to snore away. For my part, I crept close
to him and stole several kisses. Pleased with this auspicious beginning, I rose early
the next morning, brought back a pair of doves to the waiting boy, and so fulfilled
my vow.

[86] "The following night the same opportunity presented itself, but this time I
made a slight change in the form of my vow. 'O goddess,' I whispered, 'if I can car-
ess this boy's body with a free hand, tomorrow I will bring him a pair of the finest
fighting-cocks in the world. But he must not feel anything at all.' At this the boy
himself quickly snuggled closer, half afraid, I think, that I might fall asleep be-
fore I touched him. I swiftly relieved him of his fears and with roving hands took
my pleasure of his whole body, all but the supreme bliss. The following morning,
to his delight, I brought him back the gift I had promised.

"Once again on the third night, I seized my chance. By this time the boy barely pre-
tended to be asleep, and I rose and whispered in his ear: 'O immortal gods, if I may
take from this sleeping boy the perfect pleasure of my dreams, I will bring him to-
morrow a splendid Macedonian stallion. But on one condition only: he must not feel a
thing.' Never did the boy sleep more soundly. Filling my hands with his milk-white
skin, I bound my lips to his, and with one supreme effort, fulfilled my every dream.
The next morning he sat eagerly waiting for me in his room. As you can perhaps ima-
gine, it is one thing to buy doves and fighting-cocks, but quite another to buy a
stallion. Besides, I was apprehensive that the sheer size of such a gift might make
my generosity suspect. So I strolled about for a few hours and then came back, giv-
ing the boy nothing more than a kiss. Bewildered, he looked about everywhere, then
threw his arms around my neck and said, 'Please, sir, where's the stallion?'



[87] "This breach of my word, of course, shut the door against me, but it was not
long before I had my way with him again. In fact, several days later, another fest-
ival gave me my opportunity once more. As soon as I heard his father snoring away,
I begged the boy to make it up with me, or rather, to let me make love to him; in
short, I used all those arguments which only a frustrated lover knows how to use.
He was still angry, however, and to all my pleas he said nothing but, 'Go back to
sleep or I'll tell my father.' But there is no refusal so final that a determined
lover cannot somehow get around it. So, quite ignoring his refrain about waking his
father, I slipped into bed beside him, and after a brief and none too convincing
resistance on his part, I had my way with him. Apparently this highhanded treatment
did not in the least displease him. True, he reproached me for breaking my word
and told me all he had suffered from the jeers of his friends to whom he had
boasted of my generosity, but then he said: 'Just to show you I'm not like you,
you can do it again if you want.' So we made it up, and after enjoying myself a
second time at his own invitation, I fell off into a deep sleep. But the boy, with
all the passive ardor of his age, was still dissatisfied even with my double proof
of affection, and in a short while he prodded me awake, whispering, 'Don't you
want to do it again?' The offer was by no means unwelcome and I accepted with plea-
sure. Finally, after a great deal of panting and sweating, I managed to oblige him
and immediately dropped off to sleep, completely exhausted. In less than an hour
he was pinching me again: 'Why don't we do it some more,' he asked. I was furious
at being constantly reawakened and angrily turned his own words against him. 'Go
back to sleep, I cried, 'or I'll tell your father.'"

[88] Somewhat comforted by this story, I began questioning my mentor about the
dates of the paintings and those whose subjects escaped me. From this I went on
to inquire from him how he accounted for the decadence of our own times and how
it had happened that the fine arts had withered and painting had vanished almost
without a trace. "It was the love of money," he replied, "that began our catastro-
phic decline. In earlier ages, merit and achievement were honored for themselves,
the arts flowered, and there was the keenest kind of competition among men to
discover any secret of Nature which might benefit posterity. Thus Democritus, for
instance, extracted the essence of every known herb and then devoted the rest of
his life to researches into the properties of minerals and plants. Eudoxus grew
old sitting on his mountain top, painfully tracking down and recording the motions
of the planets and stars, while Chrysippus, on three different occasions, dosed
himself with hellebore to purge and invigorate his inventive powers. And if you
turn to the plastic arts, you find examples of the same selfless dedication. Thus
Lysippus, for instance, became so utterly absorbed in the formal problems of a
statue that he forgot to eat and starved to death, while Myron, whose genius it
was to render the very souls of animals and men in vivid bronze and stone, left
no natural heir.

"As for our own times, why, we are so besotted with drink, so steeped in debauchery,
that we lack the strength even to study the great achievements of the past. One
and all, we traduce the dead and slander our great tradition. We are professionals
of corruption; vice is the subject we teach and learn. What, I ask you, has become
of logic and dialectic? Where is astronomy now? What has become of that great and
lovely highway of philosophy, once so thronged with students and amateurs? Who now-
adays, tell me, goes to a temple and prays the gods to grant him the great gift of
eloquence? Who asks to slake his thirst at the primal fount of philosophy? Why, e-
ven prayers for health and soundness of mind are out of fashion nowadays. Money is
our only prayer. Before they even reach the temple, they're praying for cash. 'Let
me bury my rich relative,' asks one; 'Let me dig up a treasure, says another; the
next one wants to come by thirty millions without even taking a risk. The Senators
themselves, once the teachers of morality and religion, now vow a thousand pounds
of gold to decorate the Capitoline, gilding even Jupiter himself with cash so that
no one need be ashamed of his greed. So is it any wonder, young man, that painting
is decadent, when men and gods alike all think an ingot of gold more beautiful
than anything, those poor crazy Greeks, Apelles and Phidias, ever made?

[89] "But I see that that painting of the Fall of Troy has caught your attention.
Let me give you my own poetic commentary on the work:

　　　　　　　　THE FALL OF TROY

For ten long harvests now, by apprehension torn,
the Trojans had been besieged; old faith in Calchas fell
as time ran out, and the balance plunged, pulled down
by doubt.
　　　　　　Then lo, Apollo spoke, and Ida's wooded flanks
were felled, the forest seaward dragged, and the tall trees
chopped and shaped to make a horse of war, a giant hulk,
within whose mass a cavelike hole was hollowed out.
Here in this caverned void, the chafing host was hid,
ten long and weary years of soldier bravery confined,
ambushed in their gift to god.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　O Ilium, O my country!
At last it seemed the thousand ships had spread their sail
and fled. At last, O gods, we thought our land was free!
And this our dearest hope the votive horse confirmed,
and Sinon's lie, that mind for ruin made, that treachery
so potent for the doom of Troy.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 One huge, excited throng,
we went, crowding about the horse, crying for joy,
for joy, like terror, has her tears. Our tears were joy--
which fear as quickly dried.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 For the priest of Neptune,
Laocoon, hs white hair streaming loose, cried terror to the
　　　crowd
and hurled his spear. It struck the giant belly of the horse,
but the Fates had slowed his hand; the spear glanced off,
　　　rebounding,
and gave a credence to the Greek deceit. Once more the
　　　priest
nerved his trembling arm, then raised his axe and struck.
Beneath the heavy blow, the body creaked and throbbed;
the soldiers locked inside groaned aloud, and the wooden
　　　mass
hummed with an alien terror. Alas, it went unheard,
and the captive Greeks rode on, rode on to capture Troy
by fraud unparalleled.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 And other portents too;
for where the sheer ridge of Tenedos usurps the sea,
the water writhed and rose, and the long swell, reverberant,
shattered the calm, as sometimes in the dead of night,
the beat of stroking oars shatters the hush upon the sea,
and the ships race on, and the marbled water, sundered
by the cleaving prow, turns froth and furrows white
beneath the slicing keel.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 We turned to stare, and saw
twin serpents, a twine of writhing coils, drive on
and the water thrown against the rocks as by two ships
the waves are battered back. Their tails drummed the
　　　water;
blazing like their eyes their great crests crowded the sea;
lightnings ruddied the waves, and beneath their breath of
　　　flame,
the waters, seething, hissed.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 Our hearts stopped dead.
The priest's two boys, two little pledges of a father's love,
stood, their hair with sacred fillets bound, upon the shore,
when suddenly the snakes enclosed them both in twisting
　　　loops
like flame. Each flung his hand in terror overhead;
each for the other; each moved to shield his brother,
both boys altered by their love, and when death came,
even then, each brother trembled only for the other.
Helpless, before our eyes, their father ran to help--
and piled his life on theirs. For gorged with double death,
they fell upon the priest and bore him to the ground.
　　　There,
between the altars, thrashing the earth in death, he lay,
the priest, a victim to the gods. And so doomed Troy
profaned her little life with death, and lost her gods.
But now the rising moon drove on with larger light,
leading her long cortege of stars across the night.
Steeped in wine and dark, the sleeping Trojans lay,
as the Greeks undid the doors and streamed in manhood
　　　forth
from the cave. Each leader now made trial of his strength,
as when a mettled horse, loosed from his yoke at last,
tosses its head and mane before it bolts away.
So now, they drew their swords and set their shields in
　　　place
and rushed to war. One kills the Trojans where they lie,
joining that sleep they slept to the endless sleep of death.
Another lights his torch from the dying flame of the altars
and invokes the Trojan gods against the men of Troy..."

[90] At this moment, several of the people who were strolling about the gallery
greeted Eumolpus' epic effusion with a volley of stones. Eumolpus, clearly no
stranger to these tributes to his talent, wrapped his head in his robes and
dashed from the temple. Fearing they might accuse me of being a poet too, I
raced after him and caught him at the shore. "Look here," I said, "can't you
rid yourself of this loathsome disease? I've been with you for less than two
hours, but in all this time you've talked more like a Homer than a man. No won-
der people pelt you with stones. In fact, I'm going to fill my pockets with
stones right now, and every time you start spouting, I'll bloody your head for
you."

At this threat his face fell. "Young man," he said sadly, "this is not the
first time that this has happened to me. In fact, every time I recite in the
theater, the audience gives me a similar reception. However, to make sure
that there's no cause for differences between us, I'll promise to abstain for
the rest of the day."

"Well, if you can manage to forego your madness for that long," I said,
"then come and have dinner with me."



I gave the porter of my lodging house instructions for our meager supper...




VIII


OLD LOVES AND NEW RIVALS



[91] There I caught sight of Giton, towels and scrapers in his hands,
standing beside the wall, utterly desolate and forlorn. It was clear that
he served Ascyltus with reluctance. But scarcely able to believe my eyes...



Then he turned toward me, and his face glowed with sudden happiness. "En-
colpius," he cried, "have pity on me. Take me away from this bloody bri-
gand and then punish your poor repentant judge as cruelly as you like. I
am so miserable now that I could die happy in the mere knowledge that it
was you who wished me dead."

But afraid that someone might overhear us and foil my plans, I told him to
hush and stop weeping. Then leaving Eumolpus alone in the baths--where he was
spouting one of his poems--I took Giton by the hand, dragged him out through
a filthy, black hole and rushed him to my room as quickly as I could. Once
there, I slammed the door and threw myself on the boy, hugging him with all
my strength and kissing away the tears that stained his poor cheeks. For
the longest time, neither of us could speak a word, and the poor boy lay
there, his lovely chest choking and heaving with sobs.

"I am so incredibly weak," I said at last, "that even though you abandoned
me, I still love you. But how strange it seems that where this heart of
mine was once a gaping wound, now there is not even the trace of a scar.
But what excuse can you plead for giving your love to a passing stranger?
How have I deserved such treatment?"

Once he sensed that, despite everything, I still loved him, his face clear-
ed and he brightened up...

"I laid my case before no other judge but you," I cried. "But still, I don't
complain, and I'll promise to forget the past if you, for your part, will
prove the sincerity of your repentance by behaving well in the future." All
this, of course, I accompanied with a great flood of sighs and tears.

"Encolpius," he replied, wiping his eyes on his cloak, "I ask you, I appeal
to your own memory: was it I that left you, or you that betrayed me? I admit,
I confess it freely, that when I saw two armed men standing before me, I
ran to the side of the stronger."

How prudently, I thought, the dear boy had acted! Again and again I kissed
him to show that I forgave him, and with a huge hug declared that our friend-
ship was born anew on a firmer footing than before.

[92] It was now dark, however, and the woman had seen to my orders for supper,
when Eumolpus came pounding at the door.

"How many of you are there?" I asked, and peered out at him through a chink
to see if Ascyltus had come with him. When I was quite satisfied that he
was alone, I promptly opened the door.

He threw himself down on the bed. Then, noticing Giton busy at setting the
table, he sat up and wagged his head. "Well, well," he laughed, "I like
your Ganymede. Things are at last looking up today."

This lover's interest in Giton displeased me intensely, and I began to wonder
whether I had taken on a second Ascyltus. Eumolpus, however, persisted. When
the boy brought him a drink, he said, "You know, I like you better than the
whole bathful."

He drained off the glass at a single gulp. "I don't know," he said, "when
I've had a worse day of it. First of all, I was nearly flogged to death in
the baths when I tried to recite a few lines of verse. You would have
thought that bath was a theater the way they tossed me out. Well, I start-
ed to wander about, poking into every corner and shouting loudly for En-
colpius. On the other side of the room stood a young man, stark naked--it
seems he'd just lost his clothes--and bellowing away just as loudly for
someone called Giton. But you know what happened? The little boys started
to jeer at me and imitated my shouts as though I were completely mad,
while a huge crowd gathered around the other fellow, all of them clapping
their hands and gaping with admiration. As well they might, for that man
had a pecker of such extraordinary length that you would have thought the
man was appended to the pecker rather than the pecker to the man. What a
Hercules! Why, I'll bet that fellow could start today and still be going
strong tomorrow. I don't need to tell you that he soon found someone to
give him a hand. Some Roman knight--notorious, I was told, for his strange
tastes --threw a cloak over him as he prowled about and then led him off,
doubtless anxious to savor his find in privacy. As for me, I doubt I
could even have recovered my own clothes from the attendant if I hadn't
found someone to vouch for me. But it shows you how much more it means
in this world to have a great tool than a grand talent."

During this account, my face changed expression a dozen times. I wrinkl-
ed with pleasure at Ascyltus' troubles and scowled angrily when told of
his good luck. However, I prudently held my tongue, pretending that all
this had happened to total strangers, and then gave orders for supper
to be served.

[93] "We look with contempt on simple, available pleasures," Eumolpus
observed, "and our foolish hearts, in love with trouble, hanker after
the strange and the rare:

For importing a pheasant enhances its savor:
the rarer the bird, the finer the flavor.
But the blazoned duck and the snow-white goose seem
banal, seem vulgar, they're unfit for use. And
what can compare with an African dish? If
the fisherman drowns, that makes the fish
exquisite, divine! But mullet's a bore.
And the wife surrenders to mistress or whore.
And the roses of Rome bow down to the spice,
And our Taste is tagged with a ticket of price."

"Eumolpus," I broke in, "what about your promise that you would give up
poetry for the rest of the day? The very least you could do is spare us.
God knows, we never pelted you with stones. What's more, if a single one
of those drunkards downstairs so much as sniffs the presence of a poet
in the house, he'll rouse the neighborhood, and your damned doggerel will
be the ruin of us all."

But Giton, always sensitive to the feelings of others, reproved me. It
was rude of me, he said, to insult my elders. Worse, I had failed in my
duty as host by spoiling with my impoliteness a dinner which had been
offered in the first place out of simple kindness of heart. All this
and more, each rebuke tempered by that sweetness and concern for others
which harmonized so wonderfully with his physical beauty.

[94] "Happy the mother who gave birth to such a boy as you," Eumolpus ex-
claimed in admiration. "Be good, my son, and prosper. Ah, how rare a sight
it is, this conjunction of goodness with beauty. And lest you think your
kind words have been wasted, let me tell you that you have won yourself a
lover. Yes, I shall laud you to the skies in my verse. I will teach you
and protect you and follow behind you wherever you go. Yes, even against
your will. Have no fear. Encolpius won't be offended: he loves another."

It was fortunate for Eumolpus that that thieving soldier had robbed me of
my sword or I should have vented on him all my pent-up fury against Ascyl-
tus. Giton, immediately sensing my state of mind, discreetly left the room
on the pretext of fetching some water. His absence calmed me somewhat,
and when I felt I had mastered my feelings, I said: "Eumolpus, I would
rather that you spouted poetry than nurse such hopes as these. I am by na-
ture an angry and a jealous man; you are a lecher. So you can see how poor-
ly matched our natures are. Believe, if you wish, that you're dealing with
a madman, but make one small concession to my madness and GET OUT!"
Eumolpus, utterly bewildered by this attack, without even stopping to ask why,
rushed out, first slamming and then locking the door behind him. Taking
the key with him, he dashed off in pursuit of Giton, leaving me, to my as-
tonishment, a prisoner in my own room.

Finding myself locked in, I made up my mind to hang myself then and there.
Upending the heavy bed against the wall, I tied the knot and was just in-
serting my neck in the noose when the door was unlocked and Eumolpus walked
in, followed by Giton. It was as though from the edge of the grave I had
suddenly been restored to life. Giton was almost beside himself with grief.
With a wild scream, he rushed to me and with both hands pinned me back a-
gainst the bed. "No, Encolpius," he shrieked, "I won't let you! I won't
let you die without me. I tried to kill myself earlier when I was still
with Ascyltus. I looked everywhere for a sword. If I hadn't found you, I
would have thrown myself over a cliff. But just to show you how easy it
is to die when you want to, watch the scene you prepared for me."

With that, he snatched a razor from Eumolpus' servant, drew it once,
twice, across his throat and slumped in a heap at our feet. I gave a
shout of horror, fell down beside him and tried with the same razor to
do away with myself. Suddenly I saw that there was not the slightest
sign of a cut on Giton's throat and, stranger still, I seemed to feel
no pain. Then I realized that the razor had no cutting edge, that it
was, in fact, merely a practice-razor which had been purposely blunted
in order to give apprentice barbers a feeling of confidence. This was
why the servant had shown no alarm when the razor was ripped from the
sheath and Eumolpus had not intervened in our little play of death.

[95] In the midst of this lovers' farce, the innkeeper arrived with the
rest of our modest meal, and to his consternation, found us lying there,
covered with filth, on the floor. "What's going on here?" he bellowed.
"Are you drunk, or runaway slaves, or both? What's that bed doing prop-
ped up against the wall? What's this coil of rope for? Aha, so that's
your little game, is it? You were going to slide down the rope in the
dark and skip out on your rent. By god, you won't get away with those
tricks here. You're not dealing with some poor old widow. No, this house
belongs to Marcus Mannicius himself."

"What's that?" shouted Eumolpus, "are you trying to threaten us?" and
caught him a savage blow across the face with the heel of his hand. At
this, the innkeeper, half drunk from carousing with his guests, let him-
self go. Snatching up a clay jug, he slammed it against Eumolpus' fore-
head and then scampered out of the room. Eumolpus, infuriated with pain,
armed himself with a great wooden candlestick, gave chase and soon av-
enged his bleeding head with a whole barrage of blows. Before long the
entire household appeared, and a large crowd of drunken boarders as
well. For my part, seizing my chance to even the score with Eumolpus, I
quickly turned the key and locked him out. This revenge on my depraved
rival not only pleased me but, what was more, guaranteed my enjoyment of
my room and my sleep in privacy once more.

Meanwhile Eumolpus was being assailed on both sides by cooks and tenants
alike. One of them kept jabbing at his eyes with a skewer loaded with
steaming meat; another, snatching a fork from a bureau, stood en garde
like a gladiator. But his most persistent and dangerous opponent was an
old bleary-eyed hag dressed in a hideously filthy nightgown and unmatching
slippers, who had led up a huge hound on a leash and was now sicking the
beast against Eumolpus. But armed with his doughty candlestick, he managed
to beat off his attackers.

[96] By peeking through the gaping hole left in the door when the handle
was torn away, we managed to follow the whole course of the battle. I, of
course, was perfectly delighted to see Eumolpus get a thrashing, while
Giton, tender-hearted as ever, thought we should unlock the door and rush
out to Eumolpus' defense. But I was still burning with resentment and,
unable to control myself, I smashed the poor boy across the head with a
sweep of my clenched knuckles. Bursting into tears, he collapsed on the
bed, while I applied first one eye and then the other to the hole in the
door, feasting greedily on Eumolpus' plight and mocking his screams for
help. Suddenly the caretaker, Bargates, roused from his dinner, appeared
on the scene in a litter--he was helpless with gout--carried by two bearers.
In a furious flood of atrocious Latin, he launched out into a long tirade
against drunkards and runaway slaves. Suddenly, however, he recognized Eu-
molpus.

"What! Is that you there, most elegant of poets?" he cried. "Damn it, clear
out of here, you blasted slaves! What? They dared lift a hand against you,
dear man?"

"My mistress," said Bargates, "is giving me the cold treatment. And I'd be
obliged if you'd do me the favor of cursing her out in your verse and bringing
her back to her senses."



[97] While Eumolpus and Bargates were whispering together, a public crier
followed by a policeman and a fairly large crowd entered the building.
Brandishing a torch which gave out far more smoke than light, he read aloud
the following proclamation:

　　　　　　　　　　　　　HEAR YE!
　　　　　　RECENTLY LOST IN THE PUBLIC BATHS:
　　　　　　　　A BOY, APPROXIMATELY SIXTEEN,
　　　　　CURLY-HAIRED, ATTRACTIVE, EFFEMINATE.
　　　　　　　　ANSWERS TO THE NAME OF GITON.
　　　A REWARD OF ONE THOUSAND PIECES OFFERED
　　　FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO HIS RECOVERY.

Near the crier stood Ascyltus himself in a splendid rainbow-colored robe,
and holding the reward on a platter in evidence of his good faith.

I instantly ordered Giton to scramble under the bed and hook his hands and
feet into the webbing which supported the mattress, just as Odysseus once
escaped the searching fingers of the Cyclops by clinging. to the ram's belly.
The boy obeyed at once; in the twinkling of an eye he had inserted his hands
in the webbing with a dexterity which would have won him even Odysseus'
admiration. Finally, to remove any remaining room for suspicion, I stuffed
some clothing under the limp and sagging mattress so the bed would look as
though it had been occupied by a man of my build, sleeping by himself.

Ascyltus, meanwhile, had searched all the other rooms and came at last to
mine. There, finding the door securely bolted, his hopes began to rise. The
police agent inserted the blade of his axe into the joints and twisted until
the bolts sprang and gave way. Throwing myself at Ascyltus' feet, I implored
him in the name of our old friendship and the many hardships we had suffered
together, at least to let me see Giton before I died. Then I added for effect:
"You needn't deny that you've come here to kill me, Ascyltus. Why else would
you have brought an axe? Here: I bare my throat to your blow: strike, kill
me. That is why you came. This search is just a screen."

Ascyltus denied that he bore me any grudge at all; the only thing he wanted,
he said, was the return of his runaway slave. Certainly he desired no man's
death, least of all the death of a suppliant. Further, far from wishing to
kill me, now that our deadly argument was over, he felt for me nothing but
the warmest affection.

[98] The policeman, however, was not to be put off by this exchange of kind
words. Brusquely snatching a cane from the innkeeper, he jabbed away at the
cracks in the walls and then started prodding beneath the bed. At each jab,
Giton neatly ducked away; then holding his breath in terror he snuggled his
face tightly against the bug-infested mattress.



A few seconds after Ascyltus left, Eumolpus pushed aside the broken door
and entered the room, his face wild with fury. "Well," he said, "that re-
ward of a thousand pieces is mine. By god, I'm going to stop that crier
on his way out and tell him you're holding Giton here. That will he my re-
venge, and you deserve it too."

I clasped his knees and begged him to have pity, but he was adamant. "Eu-
molpus," I said, "I admit you have every reason in the world to be angry
and claim that reward, but first you must tell them where the boy has gone.
You see, he ran away in the crowd, I can't imagine where. So do whatever
you like, Eumolpus; you can even turn him over to Ascyltus, if you must.
But, I beg you, in the name of heaven, bring the boy back!"

I had nearly persuaded him when Giton, unable to hold his breath any longer,
sneezed three times in rapid succession, so violently that the whole bed
trembled. Eumolpus whirled around and cried, "God bless you, Giton. Then,
lifting the mattress, he uncovered that poor little Ulysses, so pitiful that
even a starving Cyclops might have been moved to mercy.

"Well," he said, turning on me, "what do you have to say for yourself now,
you liar? If the gods in heaven hadn't knocked a sign out of that poor, sus-
pended boy, I'd be running around now from tavern to tavern like a bloody
fool."



Giton, however, was far more versed in the art of cajolery than I. Steeping
several spiderwebs in oil, with great gentleness he stanched the bleeding cut
on Eumolpus' forehead. Then, removing his own tunic, he made Eumolpus take
off his tattered robe and exchange with him. Finally, seeing the poet begin
to relent, he covered him with a warm poultice of kisses and hugged him
tightly. "Dear father," he pleaded, "our fate is in your hands. If you love
your Giton at all, help him, save him. Oh, how I wish the cruel fire would
consume me or the winter sea swallow me down! For all Encolpius' crimes, I
must bear the blame. I was the cause of them all. If only I were dead, you
two might once again be friends..."



[99] "For my part," Eumolpus declared, "at all times and in all places, I have
lived as though the present day were my last and would never return again."



With the tears streaming down my face, I begged Eumolpus to make his peace
with me too. After all, I reminded him, it was simply not in the power of a
lover to master his transports of jealousy. For my part, I solemnly promised
neither to say nor do anything in the future which could possibly give him of-
fense. Only let him, as a poet, that most humane of all humane vocations,
cure himself of this scabrous anger, yes, efface even the scars of it from
his mind. "Reflect," I cried, warming to the occasion, "how, on the rough
barren uplands, the winter snows lie late and long. But where the land, tamed
by human love, glisters beneath the plow, the frost falls light and vanishes
away in the twinkling of an eye. So too with the anger in our hearts; it
strikes deep where the spirit is harsh and gross, but glances lightly away
from a civilized mind."

"True," said Eumolpus. "How true you may know by this kiss with which I now
banish my anger. Now pick up your luggage, and may good fortune go with us.
Follow me, or lead on yourself, if you prefer."

He was still in mid-sentence when there came a rap at the door and a sailor
with a scraggly beard appeared on the threshold. "The way you dally, Eumol-
pus," he said, "you'd think we had time to waste." We rose immediately. Eu-
molpus woke his sleeping slave and ordered him to go on ahead with the luggage.
Giton and I packed a duffel hag with all our worldly possessions; I made a prayer
to the stars for a safe voyage, and we went aboard the boat.




IX


LICHAS AND TRYPHAENA



That night, in the quiet corner of the deck we had staked out for ourselves,
I lay tossing sleeplessly and debating with my fears.

[100] "Encolpius, admit it," I argued with myself, "Eumolpus finds the boy at-
tractive, and you are irked. Can this be right? Look about you, man. Why, aren't
the good things of this world made for our common enjoyment, every lovely thing
free for the taking? The sun shines down upon us all; the moon with her train
of countless stars leads all animals alike to their common pasture. What is love-
lier than water? Yet it flows for us all. Is love therefore exempt from the un-
iversal law, a bliss to be stolen and hid, and not our common reward? No, no,
better to have nothing at all, unless the world envies you what you have. Be-
sides, what do you have to fear from one rival, and an old one at that? Even if
he should try to take an unfair advantage, his horrible wheezing would give
him away."

All these reflections, of course, were intended to put my mind at rest, but
somehow I remained stubbornly unconvinced. In the end, I buried my head in my
cloak and tried to force myself asleep. But suddenly, as though Fate herself
were bent on crashing what little confidence I had left, I heard a loud groan
from the deck and then a man's voice angrily cry out, "By god, he won't get
away with it!" My heart skipped a beat: somewhere I had heard that voice be-
fore. Then a woman's voice, shrill with indignation, exclaimed, "Oh, if I could
only get my hands on Giton, what a welcome I'd give that little runaway!"
Utterly unexpected, the sound of those two voices came as such a shock that
Giton and I--but especially I--went white with terror. I felt as though I were
being whirled round and round in some awful nightmare. Finally I found my voice
and, my hands shaking with fright, started tugging at Eumolpus' robes. "In god's
name," I whispered, "who's the captain of this ship? Who are the passengers?"
Grumpy at being wakened from sleep, he growled back, "Is this why you made
us pick out a quiet spot on deck, so you could keep us awake all night with
your damned questions? For all the good it will do you, the captain is Lichas
from Tarentum and he's taking Tryphaena to exile in Tarentum."

[101] Those two names fell on my ears like two claps of thunder. I shudder-
ed with terror, bared my throat and cried out, "Now, O Fortune, thou hast
destroyed me quite!" Giton collapsed and lay sprawled out across my lap in
a dead faint. Then the sweat came pouring out through our pores and we
slowly came back to life. I threw myself at Eumolpus' feet and clasped his
knees. "Mercy," I cried, "have mercy on two doomed men. I implore you, Eu-
molpus, in the name of our common citizenship in the Republic of Letters,
despatch us with your own hand. Our hour has struck. Kill us, I beseech you,
for death itself would be sweeter than the fate that awaits us."

Quite overwhelmed by this tragic appeal, Eumolpus swore by every god in hea-
ven that he had no idea what I was talking about. Moreover, he was utterly
innocent of any evil design upon us and had brought us on board the boat in
absolute good faith; in fact, if we needed proof, he had reserved his passage
a long time before. "In any case" he snorted, "what is this sinister plot?
Who is this horrible Hannibal you imagine we've got on board? Lichas of Tar-
entum is an extremely respectable man. Not only is he captain of this ship
but also its owner. Moreover, he's a large landowner and the head of a trad-
ing house; at the present moment, he's shipping a cargo on consignment. This
is the ferocious Cyclops and pirate chief to whom we owe our passage. Besides
Lichas, there's Tryphaena, the loveliest woman in the world, who spends her
life roaming about in search of pleasure."

"But it's just these two that we're running away from," Giton broke in, and
with a torrent of words, he quickly outlined to the startled Eumolpus the
causes of our feud and the dangers which threatened us. Obviously completely
at a loss, Eumolpus asked each of us to state his opinion. "Imagine," he said,
"that this ship is the Cyclops' cave in which we're trapped. The problem before
us is to break out. Unless, of course, we prefer to win our freedom by purpose-
ly wrecking the ship."

"No," Giton replied. "Persuade the helmsman instead to put the ship into some
harbor. Tip him well, of course, and tell him your little friend is so seasick
he's likely to die. A worried look and a few tears will do for a front. The
pilot will begin to feel sorry for you, and so do what you want."

"Impossible," Eumolpus answered. "In the first place, it's no easy matter to
get a big ship like this one into harbor; second, it's extremely unlikely that
you could be that seasick so soon. Besides, what if Lichas out of simple kind-
ness should take it into his head to pay a call on the sick man? A pretty mess
that would be, leading the captain right to the stowaways. Anyway, even if we
could persuade the pilot to change course and Lichas didn't make the rounds of
the cabins, how in the world could we get off the ship without being seen? Do
we cover up, or make a run for it as we are? If we cover up, everyone will want
to give a hand to the poor, ailing passengers. If we go bareheaded, we might
as well just give ourselves up."

[102] "No," I said, "what we need now is boldness and daring. Listen: we'll
slide down the rope to the life-boat, cut the cable and leave the rest to luck.
I don't ask Eumolpus, of course, to share our dangers. Since he's not involved,
I don't see any reason why he should have to run our risks. All I ask is that
Fortune give us a little help."

Not a bad plan," Eumolpus observed, "if there were the slightest chance of mak-
ing it work. But everybody would see us leaving. Even if they didn't see us, the
pilot who sits there on duty all night, charting his course by the stars, is
certain to spot us. You might elude him, I suppose, if you made your escape from
another part of the ship, but as it is, you want to escape from the poop beside
the pilot's wheel where the boat rope is tied. Besides, Encolpius, I'm surpris-
ed that it hasn't struck you that one of the crew is stationed in the skiff
night and day, and you can't get rid of him unless you're prepared to kill him
or throw him overboard. Whether that's possible or not is something that only
your own courage can answer. Finally, so far as my coming with you is concerned,
I am prepared to run any risk which offers a sporting chance of escape; but to
throw our lives away for nothing is something I doubt you can want, even in
your present situation. See now what you think of this plan. I'll roll you both
up in my bedding, leaving the ends just enough open so that you can breathe
and get food, and stow you away as part of my personal luggage. Then I'll give
it out that two of my slaves, terrified of a beating, took the easy way out
and threw themselves overboard during the night. Then, the instant we land,
I'll have you disembarked with the rest of my baggage and there won't be the
slightest suspicion."

"What the hell do you think we are?" I cried. "A couple of logs to be baled
up in your baggage? We've got bodies, man. Our insides aren't made of stone;
we have to sneeze and snore. Maybe Menelaus made this trick work, but that
was in a poem; what makes you think we could get away with it here? Anyway,
even supposing we were able to stand being rolled up like that for a day,
what happens if we get becalmed or held up by rough weather? Even clothing
gets creased and mussed from being packed; rolled-up papers develop a perm-
anent curl, don't they? Then what in god's name will happen to us? We're
made of flesh; we're young; we can't take that kind of treatment. No sir,
if you think our poor bodies are going to stand being wrapped in dirty
rags and roped up like a couple of statues, you're sadly mistaken."



"No, Eumolpus," I said, "it just won't do. We'll have to think of something
else. See, for instance, what you think of this. As a literary man, Eumolpus
is certain to have some ink with him. Very well, we'll smear ourselves with
ink from head to toe until we're as black as two Ethiopian slaves. For his
part, Eumolpus will acquire two slaves, both overjoyed at having escaped
punishment and eager to serve him, while our sudden transformation will
completely fool our enemies."

"Oh, just splendid," Giton broke in sarcastically. "And while you're at
it, why not circumcise us too, so we look like Jews, and pierce our ears
like Arabs, and plaster our faces with chalk like Gauls? As though a mere
change of color could alter a man's whole appearance, and you didn't need
perfection in every detail to sustain a good lie. Besides, what makes you
think the dye would last? Won't even a single drop of water spot it?
Wouldn't our clothes stick to it? God knows, they're sticky enough with
sweat without adding ink. Anyway, even supposing the dye was fast, how
can we get that fat-lipped Ethiopian look? Do we frizzle our hair with
curlers? And plough up our foreheads with crisscross scars? Can we walk
around bowlegged and sag in at the ankles? How do we give our beards an
African cut? No, dye merely stains the body; it doesn't change it. As I
see it, there's only one way out; let's cover our eyes with our robes and
jump overboard."

[103] "God and man forbid," Eumolpus exclaimed, "that you should make
such a miserable conclusion of your lives! No, here's what I suggest.
My slave, as you will have recognized from his razor, is a barber. Very
well, we'll have him shave you both right now, everything, your hair
and eyebrows too. Then I'll carefully letter your foreheads so you look
like a couple of branded slaves. The brandmarks will not only divert
suspicion but will help to conceal your faces under the shadow of pun-
ishment."

We immediately adopted this plan. Tiptoeing softly to the other side
of the deck, we offered our heads and eyebrows to the barber's razor,
while Eumolpus, with generous strokes, traced out on our foreheads in
large letters the well-known inscription for runaway slaves. By bad
luck, however, we were seen being shorn by one of the passengers who
happened to be leaning over the rail, relieving his seasickness. Ang-
rily cursing the shearing, so ominously reminiscent of the last offer-
ing of shipwrecked sailors, he slumped back on his hammock. Pretending
we hadn't heard his puking curses, we went on with our melancholy work,
and then spent the rest of the night tossing restlessly in uneasy sleep.




X


DISCOVERED



[101] "I thought I saw Priapus in a dream last night," said Lichas,
"and he said to me: 'I have led Encolpius, the object of your search,
on board your ship.'"

"You'd think," replied Tryphaena with a shudder, "that we'd been sleep-
ing together. I had a dream too in which the statue of Neptune I saw in
the gallery at Baiae seemed to say to me: 'You will find Giton on board
Lichas' ship.'"

Eumolpus hastily broke in. "Exactly. And this shows you why we consider
Epicurus almost superhuman. As you may remember, he very wittily dispose-
s of such coincidences as mere silly superstitions."

Lichas, nonetheless, was troubled by Tryphaena's dream and ordered liba-
tions poured to avert the bad omen. "I take it," he added, "that no one
will object if I order the ship to be searched. After all, we don't want
to seem to scoff at the workings of divine Providence."

At this point a certain Hesus, the passenger who had witnessed our furtive
work the night before, suddenly recognized us. "Those are the ones," he
shouted, "those are the men I saw being shaved last night in the moonlight!
Gods in heaven, what a stupid thing to do! At least I've heard it said that
nobody on board a ship is allowed to cut his hair or pare his nails except
in a terrible storm."

[105] Lichas was scandalized. "Where's the man who dared cut his hair on
board my ship in the dead of night?" he bellowed. "Bring the culprits here
this instant. By god, I want to know who's going to lose his head in order
to get this ship purified again!"

"I gave the orders to shave them," said Eumolpus. "And you can be quite
sure that, as a .passenger on this ship myself, I had no intention of do-
ing anything that might cause trouble. No, I ordered them shorn because
their hair was so horribly shaggy and I didn't want the ship looking like
a prison. What's more, they've both been branded and I was particularly
anxious that the marks should be legible, not hidden away under tufts of
scraggly hair. You wouldn't believe it, but last night I found these two
having a party with their girlfriend on the money they'd stolen from me,
and I had to drag them away in an absolute stink of wine and cheap perfume.
In short, they stank of the remains of my inhentance."

In order to appease the patron goddess of the ship, it was decided that
each of us would be given forty strokes with the lash. The order was exe-
cuted immediately. Sailors armed with knotted ropes threw themselves upon
us, determined to placate their goddess with our blood. For my part, I
bore three strokes with almost Spartan endurance; but at the first blow
Giton screamed so shrilly that Tryphaena recognized his voice. Not only
Tryphaena; all the maidservants came rushing up at the sound of that well-
known voice. Giton's extraordinary beauty, however, had already disarmed
the sailors; far more eloquently than any words they pleaded his case to
his tormentors. But now the maids came screaming and shrieking: "It's
Giton, it's Giton! Help, ma'am, they're beating Gitonl Stop beating him,
you brutes!"

Tryphaena's heart, however, had already told her who it was and she fair-
ly flew to the boy. Lichas, an old acquaintance of mine, indeed once an
intimate friend, ran up as though he'd heard me shout and, quite ignoring
my face and hands, stared fixedly at me. Then, exploring me with an expert
hand, he said, "Hello, Encolplus." So it can hardly be a matter for much
surprise that Ulysses' old nurse, even after an absence of twenty years,
should have recognized her master's scar, when this clever man instantly
put his finger on the one physical peculiarity that gave me away, even
though my face and clothing were completely disguised. Tryphaena, thor-
oughly convinced that the marks painted on our foreheads had been made
by the branding iron, burst into tears and began to commiserate with us,
asking what prison had interrupted our wanderings and what inhuman hands
had inflicted this ghastly punishment upon us. "Of course," she added,
"it was only to be expected that runaway slaves who had returned her every
kindness with hatred should have to suffer for it in the end . . ."

[106] At this Lichas completely lost his temper. "You simple-minded fool,"
he shouted, "do you really believe those letters were burnt in with a hot
iron? By god, I only wish they had been: that would be some satisfaction
at least. As it is, we're being taken in by cheap actors' tricks. That in-
scription is nothing but a sham.

Tryphaena, however, had not yet lost all her old appetite for Giton, and
was therefore inclined to mercy. But Lichas, still smarting from the memory
of his wife's seduction and the insults he had received in the Porch of
Hercules, was harsh and vindictive. "Tryphaena," he said, his face twisted
with fury, "even you, I think, will agree that the gods exercise some con-
trol over human affairs. These two criminals have been led by the gods on
board our ship without knowing whose it was, and the gods themselves have
advised us of their actions through two strikingly similar dreams. I ask you
then: how can we presume to pardon them when the gods themselves have
led them to punishment? Personally, I am not a vindictive man, but I fear
that if I pardon them I may live to regret it."

Swayed by this superstitious reasoning, Tryphaena veered around and said
she had no objection to punishing us. In fact, the revenge was quite jus-
tified and, for her part, she approved it. After all, she had been as badly
wronged as Lichas: hadn't her honor been publicly impugned?



[107] Eumolpus managed our defense. "The accused," he said, "have invited
me, as a man of known probity, to act as mediator here in effecting a recon-
ciliation between both parties, once good friends but now estranged. Let me
ask you, first of all, Lichas, whether you believe that these young men fell
into your clutches by mere chance and not intention? But surely the first
concern of every passenger is to make inquiries about the captain to whom
he entrusts his welfare during the voyage. In any case the claims of honor
have surely been more than satisfied already. I appeal to your mercy; relent
and allow these two young men, free citizens both, to proceed on their jour-
ney unharmed. Even the harshest and most vindictive of masters checks his
anger when the runaway returns repentant. It is Roman to show mercy to a
fallen foe. What more can honor exact? What more could you possibly wish?
There, prostrate at your feet, lie two free and respectable young men, and
what is more, men who were once bound to you by the closest of ties. Had
they robbed you or betrayed your trust, surely the punishment they have al-
ready suffered would suffice to atone for their crime. Look at those unhappy
heads, those faces once so bright with the light of freedom defiled with the
self-imposed marks of slavery, by their own decree proscribed from civil soc-
iety."

"You're confusing the issue," Lichas interrupted him. "Let me deal with your
arguments point for point. In the first place, if they've come here of their
own accord, why have they shaved off their hair? A man disguises himself be-
cause he wants to make mischief, not because he wants to make amends. Again,
if you, as their official spokesman, wanted to get them pardoned, why have
you done everything in your power to keep them out of sight? No, Eumolpus,
the evidence couldn't be more conclusive: they fell into our hands quite by
accident, and all these arguments of yours have been concocted to protect
them from our anger. As for your attempt to embarrass us by calling them
'free' and 'respectable,' take care lest your effrontery cost your clients
their case out of hand. Besides, what in god's name do you expect an injured
man to do when his enemies run right into his hands? Ah, but these men were
once our friends, you say; all the more reason then for dealing harshly with
them. The man who injures a total stranger is guilty of a crime, but there's
no word to describe the man who wantonly injures his friends."

Lichas was being outrageously unfair, and Eumolpus cut him off by saying,
"I am quite aware that the most damning evidence yet adduced against my
clients is the fact that they shaved off their hair. From this you conclude
that it was mere chance that led them on board your ship, not a sincere de-
sire to make amends. Now I want you to hear the plain truth of the matter,
quite as simply as it happened. Before we sailed, my clients had both in-
tended to rid themselves of that ugly tangle of useless hair; meanwhile,
however, a fresh breeze had sprung up, and your sudden decision to sail
forced them to postpone their project until later. And, being completely
ignorant of sailor's superstitions and nautical custom, they never imagined
it could make the slightest difference where they cut their hair."

"But what in god's name," replied Lichas, "does shaving yourself bald have
to do with asking for forgiveness? Or do they think that baldness is path-
etic in itself? But I see that it's a waste of time to try and get the
truth here at secondhand.--All right, birdbait, what do you have to say for
yourself? What salamander singed off your eye-brows? What god did you ded-
icate your curls to? Answer, scum!"

[108] But I was too petrified with terror to speak; besides, the evidence
was only too conclusive, and what could I say? So I stood there, mutilated
and miserable, my head as bald as brass, with no eyebrows at all, utterly
unable to speak a word. The next thing I knew someone was sloshing at me
with a soaking sponge; the ink trickled down my face and the letters paint-
ed on my forehead ran together in a huge black blob. Lichas was staring at
me, less in anger than loathing. Then Eumolpus intervened, protesting vig-
orously that he could not allow two free men, in violation of every law of
god and man, to be willfully disfigured; when, despite his protests, our
persecutors persisted, Eumolpus beat them back with his fists. His slave,
of course, stood staunchly by him and several passengers even offered to
assist him, so feebly, however, that their help amounted to little more than
moral support for our side.

Not the man to whine for pity, I promptly leapt into action myself. Rushing
up to Tryphaena, I shook my fist in her face, shrieking that she was a filthy
whore, that nobody on board that boat more richly deserved a flogging than
she, and that I would use every resource at my disposal to keep her from
hurting Giton. At this Lichas went livid with rage and accused me of attack-
ing her in order to divert attention from my own lost cause. Tryphaena her-
self was wild with indignation and, in less than a second, the whole ship
divided into two hostile camps. On our side Eumolpus' slave armed himself
with a razor and passed out the remaining razors among us, while Tryphaena's
cohorts, spurred on by the hystencal screaming of her maids, prepared to at-
tack us with their bare hands. Only the pilot remained aloof, cursing the
whole fracas as the lunatic work of a mob of perverts and threatening to ab-
andon his post unless we stopped immediately. Even this dire threat, however,
failed to quench our martial ardor. And so we fought, both sides heavily crip-
pled by casualties--none of them fatal, however--as the wounded, drenched in
their own blood, limped stricken from the field. But still the battle raged
implacably on.

Suddenly, however, our gallant Giton turned the edge of his razor against his
own manhood, threatening at one fell blow to lop away that root of all our
troubles. Tryphaena, overcome with horror, cast all pretense aside and rush-
ed forward to prevent the consummation of such a catastrophe. For my part,
following Giton's example, I several times lifted my razor to my own throat,
no more intending, of course, to kill myself than Giton intended to castrate
himself. Giton meanwhile, bolstered by his knowledge that the razor was the
same one with which he had earlier tried to slit his throat, was carrying off
his tragic role with magnificent self-assurance. But there we stood, both
sides drawn up in full battle array, poised for the slaughter. And almost cer-
tainly our little fracas must have ended in general disaster, had not the pi-
lot at the last minute persuaded the reluctant Tryphaena to play the part of
peacemaker. So the customary ritual phrases were pronounced, and Tryphaena,
waving an olive branch torn from the ship's figurehead, advanced slowly toward
us, chanting as she came:

　　What folly, what fury, transposes peace with war?
　　What excuse for war have we? No prince of Troy
　　here bears his ravished Spartan bride away;
　　no frenzied Medea at her brother's body hacks.
　　Only love disprized; unrequited love,
　　our only casus belli. Why then this war
　　when the raging sea makes war against us all?
　　When the sea itself is death, why, why, should we
　　compound our doom and stain the swirling waters red?

[109] Her lines were delivered with such effective pathos that a lull settled
over the ship and our hands slowly relaxed around their weapons, opening with
peace. Taking advantage of the momentary lull, our general Eumolpus delivered
a brief tirade against Lichas and then drew up for signature the following
articles of peace:

I.

I, Tryphaena, do hereby solemnly contract and agree to renounce all projects
of vengeance against the person of Giton, binding myself to seek no redress
for any injuries I may have suffered prior to the making of this agreement,
and freely waiving all claims for damage attending thereto. I further pledge
myself to exact nothing from the boy against his will, to wit, neither kiss-
es, nor hugs, nor plenary cohabitation; or, if I do so exact, I agree to pay
a fine of one hundred pieces for each such infraction thereof.

II.

I, Lichas, do hereby solemnly agree and contract neither to insult Encolpius
by word or look nor to inquire where he sleeps at night; or, should I so in-
quire, to forfeit the sum of two hundred pieces in satisfaction of any and
all injuries attendant upon such inquiries.

On these terms and conditions the peace was signed and we laid down our arms.
But to ensure that no vestige of old rancor or resentment should trouble our
new-made peace, it was decided to efface the past entirely by means of a gen-
eral embrace all around. And so, to universal applause, we formally laid our
hatred to rest and, appropriating some refreshments prepared originally for
the battle, we ratified our agreement with festivity. The whole ship rang
with our songs, and then when a sudden calm held us in our course, we tried
our luck at spearing the fish as they burst, leaping, from the water, while
others reeled in their thrashing prey on baited hooks. And when a flock of
seabirds settled on the rigging, a sailor skillfully caught them with limed
twigs. Snared, the poor creatures fell 'helplessly into our outstretched
hands and their down was caught by the rising breeze and their feathers
were whirled away and lost in the windblown spray.




XI


THE PLEASURES OF PEACE



Our efforts at peace seemed to be succeeding. In no time at all, Lichas and
I were well on the way to a genuine reconciliation, and Tryphaena was alrea-
dy amorously dumping the dregs of her drink over Giton's head. Eumolpus,
meanwhile, his tongue loosened by the wine, was pouring forth a great stream
of satire against bald men and branded slaves. Having finally exhausted his
chilly wit on this subject, he reverted to verse and improvised the follow-
ing little elegy on hair:

　　Your body's glory's fled, your hair is dead;
　　　your leaf has perished with the year's.
　　On naked brows the shadeless sun beats down:
　　　Sahara starts above your ears.

　　O gods above, how cruelly you deceive us:
　　the first of all your gifts, the first to leave us.

This effort was immediately followed by a special apostrophe to Giton:

　　　　　　　Unhappy boy, your curls once shone
　　　　　　　more brightly than Apollo's own,
　　　　　　　and Artemis, though wondrous fair,
　　　　　　　　　　combed duller hair.

　　　　　　　Now, bald as brass, thy bulbous brain,
　　　　　　　like mushroom cap in pelting rain,
　　　　　　　prinks up, and all thy quondam curls
　　　　　　　　　　are mocked by girls.

　　　　　　　But so we die; so death comes on,
　　　　　　　as, even now, thy life has gone,
　　　　　　　and every curl that graced thy head,
　　　　　　　　　　dear lad, lies dead.

[110] I suspect he was on the point of following this doggerel with something
even sillier, but before he could open his mouth, Tryphaena's maid snatched
Giton away below deck and disguised that poor bald head with one of her mis-
tress' wigs. Then taking a pair of eyebrows from a tiny case, she deftly fit-
ted them to the vanished hairline, quite restoring the boy to his pristine
beauty. Recognizing her true Giton at last, Tryphaena burst into tears of joy
and kissed him for the first time with unmistakable warmth. For my part, al-
though overjoyed to see the boy blossom forth in all his old beauty, I felt,
by contrast, so horribly disfigured and so hideously ugly--even Lichas couldn't
bear to look at me--that I covered my face in shame. But the same little maid
proved my savior too, and leading me off, covered me with a head of hair
quite as splendid as Giton's. In fact, if anything, I acquired rather more
than I had lost, for the wig was blonde, and my head fairly shone with a tan-
gled, golden glory...

Meanwhile Eumolpus, our spokesman in the hour of danger and the author of
our present reconciliation, anxious that our gaiety should not be broken,
began, in a sudden moment of silence, to gibe at the fickleness of women,
the wonderful ease with which they became infatuated, their readiness to a-
bandon their children for their lovers, and so forth. In fact, he declared,
no woman was so chaste or faithful that she couldn't be seduced; sooner or
later she would fall head over heels in love with some passing stranger. Nor,
he added, was he thinking so much of the old tragedies and the classics of
love betrayed as of something that had happened in our own time; in fact,
if we were willing to hear, he would be delighted to tell the story. All
eyes and ears were promptly turned to our narrator, and he began:

[111] "Once upon a time there was a certain married woman in the city of
Ephesus whose fidelity to her husband was so famous that the women from
all the neighboring towns and villages used to troop into Ephesus merely to
stare at this prodigy. It happened, however, that her husband one day died.
Finding the normal custom of following the cortege with hair unbound and
beating her breast in public quite inadequate to express her grief, the
lady insisted on following the corpse right into the tomb, an underground
vault of the Greek type, and there set herself to guard the body, weeping
and wailing night and day. Although in her extremes of grief she was clear-
ly courting death from starvation, her parents were utterly unable to per-
suade her to leave, and even the magistrates, after one last supreme attempt,
were rebuffed and driven away. In short, all Ephesus had gone into mourning
for this extraordinary woman, all the more since the lady was now passing
her fifth consecutive day without once tasting food. Beside the failing woman
sat her devoted maid, sharing her mistress' grief and relighting the lamp
whenever it flickered out. The whole city could speak, in fact, of nothing
else: here at last, all classes alike agreed, was the one true example of
conjugal fidelity and love.

"In the meantime, however, the governor of the province gave orders that
several thieves should be crucified in a spot close by the vault where the
lady was mourning her dead husband's corpse. So, on the following night, the
soldier who had been assigned to keep watch on the crosses so that nobody
could remove the thieves' bodies for burial suddenly noticed a light blazing
among the tombs and heard the sounds of groaning. And prompted by a natural
human curiosity to know who or what was making those sounds, he descended
into the vault.

"But at the sight of a strikingly beautiful woman, he stopped short in ter-
ror, thinking he must be seeing some ghostly apparition out of hell. Then,
observing the corpse and seeing the tears on the lady's face and the scratch-
es her fingernails had gashed in her cheeks, he realized what it was: a widow,
in inconsolable grief. Promptly fetching his little supper back down to the
tomb, he implored the lady not to persist in her sorrow or break her heart
with useless mourning. All men alike, he reminded her, have the same end;
the same resting place awaits us all. He used, in short, all those plati-
tudes we use to comfort the suffering and bring them back to life. His con-
solations, being unwelcome, only exasperated the widow more; more violently
than ever she beat her breast, and tearing out her hair by the roots, scat-
tered it over the dead man's body. Undismayed, the soldier repeated his ar-
guments and pressed her to take some food, until the little maid, quite ov-
ercome by the smell of the wine, succumbed and stretched out her hand to
her tempter. Then, restored by the food and wine, she began herself to assail
her mistress' obstinate refusal.

"'How will it help you,' she asked the lady, 'if you faint from hunger? Why
should you bury yourself alive, and go down to death before the Fates have
called you? What does Vergil say?--

　　　Do you suppose the shades and ashes of the dead
　　　are by such sorrow touched?

No, begin your life afresh. Shake off these woman's scruples; enjoy the light
while you can. Look at that corpse of your poor husband: doesn't it tell you
more eloquently than any words that you should live?'

"None of us, of course, really dislikes being told that we must eat, that
life is to be lived. And the lady was no exception. Weakened by her long days
of fasting, her resistance crumbled at last, and she ate the food the soldier
offered her as hungrily as the little maid had eaten earlier.

[112] "Well, you know what temptations are normally aroused in a man on a
full stomach. So the soldier, mustering all those blandishments by means
of which he had persuaded the lady to live, now laid determined siege to her
virtue. And chaste though she was, the lady found him singularly attractive
and his arguments persuasive. As for the maid, she did all she could to
help the soldier's cause, repeating like a refrain the appropriate line of
Vergil:

　　　If love is pleasing, lady, yield yourself to love.

To make the matter short, the lady's body soon gave up the struggle; she
yielded and our happy warrior enjoyed a total triumph on both counts. That
very night their marriage was consummated, and they slept together the second
and the third night too, carefully shutting the door of the tomb so that any
passing friend or stranger would have thought the lady of famous chastity
had at last expired over her dead husband's body.

"As you can perhaps imagine, our soldier was a very happy man, utterly de-
lighted with his lady's ample beauty and that special charm that a secret
love confers. Every night, as soon as the sun had set, he bought what few
provisions his slender pay permitted and smuggled them down to the tomb. One
night, however, the parents of one of the crucified thieves, noticing that
the watch was being badly kept, took advantage of our hero's absence to re-
move their son's body and bury it. The next morning, of course, the soldier
was horror-struck to discover one of the bodies missing from its cross, and
ran to tell his mistress of the horrible punishment which awaited him for
neglecting his duty. In the circumstances, he told her, he would not wait to
be tried and sentenced, but would punish himself then and there with his own
sword. All he asked of her was that she make room for another corpse and al-
low the same gloomy tomb to enclose husband and lover together.

"Our lady's heart, however, was no less tender than pure. 'God forbid.' she
cried, 'that I should have to see at one and the same time the dead bodies of
the only two men I have ever loved. No, better far, I say, to hang the dead
than kill the living.' With these words, she gave orders that her husband's
body should be taken from its bier and strung up on the empty cross. The sol-
dier followed this good advice, and the next morning the whole city wondered
by what miracle the dead man had climbed up on the cross."

[113] The sailors greeted this story with great guffaws, while Trvphaena
blushed to her ears and tried to hide her head in embarrassment against Gi-
ton's shoulder. Lichas alone was not amused. "By god," he burst out, shaking
his head angrily, "if that governor had done his duty, he would have had the
husband returned to his tomb and the wife strung up on the cross!" He was
remembering, I suppose, what had happened with Hedyle and how his ship had
been pillaged by that mob of lecherous passengers. But the terms of our
treaty forbade him to hold a grudge, and the general atmosphere of good feel-
ing outlawed any show of resentment.

In the meantime, however, Tryphaena was lolling in Giton's lap, smothering
his chest with kisses and amorously snuggling the curls of his wig back in
place. Uneasy and depressed, increasingly impatient myself of our peace trea-
ty and its clauses, I sat there, utterly incapable of drinking or eating,
glaring furiously at the two of them. Every kiss, every caress that that
lecherous slut could invent, cut me to the quick. I hardly knew whether I was
angrier with the boy for stealing my mistress than with the mistress for se-
ducing the boy. More painful than the memory of my past captivity, the sight
of the two of them offended my eyes unbearably. Worse yet, Trvphaena spoke to
me with undisguised coldness, not at all as one speaks to a chosen lover and
intimate friend, while Giton pointedly refused to drink my health, neglecting
even to include me in the general conversation, the very least he could have
done. It may have been, I suppose, that he was afraid of opening a fresh
wound in the initial stages of our reconciliation. But for whatever reason,
I felt utterly rejected; my chest heaved with sobs and I almost died from try-
ing to cover my groans of despair with my sighs.



Lichas tried to gain admission to our pleasures, no longer affecting the ar-
rogance of a master, but begging us, as his friend, to do him a favor.



"Encolpius, if you had any blood in you at all," Tryphaena's maid cried out,
"you'd treat her like the whore she is. If you're a real man, you'll stay away
from that filthy slut.'



Above all, I was haunted by the fear that Eumolpus might have witnessed the
whole scene and would take his revenge in a storm of sarcastic verse...



Eumolpus made a solemn promise...






XII


SHIPWRECKED



[114] But while we were talking aimlessly of this and that, the sea suddenly
grew rough and great thunderheads towered up on every quarter, utterly blacking
out the light of day. Shaking with terror, the sailors scrambled to their posts
and hastily furled the sails against the gathering storm. But the raging winds
cracked down on the ship from every side at once, battering us so wildly that
the pilot completely lost his sense of direction. At one moment we seemed to
be driving straight for Sicily; at the next, we were caught by the North Wind,
that squalling tyrant of the Italian coast, and pitched about completely at
its mercy. But even more ominous than the winds was the sudden darkness, a
blackness so intense that the pilot, standing on the stern, could no longer
see the prow.

Then, at the very peak of our danger, Lichas, wild with fright, stretched out
his hands to me. "For god's sake, Encolpius," he shrieked, "help us! Save us
from danger! Give back the robe and sistrum you stole from the goddess of the
ship. In the name of heaven, I implore you, pity us! Show us that compassion
you have always shown to others!"

He was still pleading when the wind suddenly snatched him up and dropped him
into the sea; an instant later he reappeared, only to be whirled about by a
gust and sucked under by the seething waves. As for Tryphaena, her maids forc-
ibly carried her away and set her in the skiff with the greater part of her
baggage, saving her from almost certain death.

I, meanwhile, was clinging to Giton with all my strength, sobbing with terror
and tragic despair. "O gods in heaven," I cried in bitterness of heart, "is
this your justice, that two lovers should be united only at the moment of
death? Alas, not even that: for the Fates are cruel, and soon the seas will
overturn the ship and the wild waves sunder even two lovers' last embrace. Oh
Giton, if you truly love your Encolpius, kiss him while you can and let us rav-
ish together our last happiness from the hungry Fates!"

Quickly stripping off his clothes, Giton snuggled underneath my tunic and
lifted his face to be kissed. Then, to keep the jealous sea from breaking our
embrace, he bound his belt about us both and budded it tight. "One last so-
lace at least remains, Encolpius," he cried. "Whatever may happen now, at
least we shall lie united in love upon the heaving swell a while, and if per-
chance some kinder current than the rest should cast us on the shore, some
passerby, by simple human kindness moved, may build us both a single grave.
Lacking that, there still remains one mercy which the angry sea has never
yet refused: the same careless sands, I mean, may then enclose us both.

Resigned, I let myself be bound in that final bond and stood there patiently
awaiting a death by now divorced of all its terror. Meanwhile, loyal to the
grim fiat of the Fates, the storm ripped away the last remnants of the ship.
Masts, tiller, ropes and oars, all were battered away, leaving behind only a
rough and shapeless hulk to drift slowly on the surface of the aimless sea.

Fishermen in skiffs came darting out in hopes of salvage, but when they found
living men on board, ready and willing to defend their property, they hastily
changed their minds and offered us help instead.



[115] Suddenly we heard a strange sound, rather like the snarl of a wild animal
trying to escape, coming from the direction of the pilot's cabin. Tracking the
sound to its source, we discovered Eumolpus sitting on the floor and furiously
scribbling verses on a huge sheet of parchment. Astounded that he had found
time for composing poetry in the very teeth of death, we nonetheless, despite
his angry protests, dragged him out and begged him to come to his senses. But
he was fuming with rage at having been interrupted. "Dammit," he bellowed, "let
me finish this stanza. The last lines limp." I took the lunatic by the shoulder
and somehow, thanks to Giton's help, managed to haul the bellowing bard ashore.



Our task at last completed, we made our way dejectedly to a fisherman's but
where we somehow scraped up a the water-soaked provisions we had salvaged
from the ship and spent an altogether miserable night.

The next morning while we were trying to decide in what direction we ought to
strike out, I suddenly saw a human body slowly rocking shorewards in the gentle
surf. Breaking off in mid-sentence, I felt the tears tugging at my eyes and
with a heavy heart I began to reflect on the fatal treachery of the sea.

"Think of it," I exclaimed sadly. "Somewhere in this world some wife perhaps
sits waiting for that man, never doubting his return. Or somewhere a son to whom
this storm at sea has no meaning yet. Or a father perhaps; but surely, surely
there was someone whom he kissed goodbye when he sailed away to death. But
drowned! To think our every human hope must someday come to this, this corpse
of great ambitions, this poor drowned body of our dreams! O gods, and was this
once a man, this thing that floats now merely?"

Up to now I thought I was mourning a stranger, some man I never knew, but at
that moment the surf dropped the body on the beach, face up, its every feature
distinct, and I recognized the face of Lichas. The very man, Lichas himself,
once so formidable, so terrible and relentless in his hatred of me, now tossed
up by the sea almost at my feet! Fighting my tears no longer, I wept openly,
unashamedly, and beat my breast in a frenzy of grief.

"Where are they now," I cried, "all your anger and your greatness? But two lit-
tle hours ago you boasted of your pride of power and your manhood's strength
and yet, what are you now? Food for the fish, for every crawling creature in
the sea. Of all that mighty ship you once commanded, not one poor saving spar
is left you in your utter shipwreck. And yet we scheme and hope, stuffing our
foolish hearts with dreams, scrimping and saving, hoarding the wealth we win by
wrong, planning our lives as though we had a thousand years to live! Why, why?
One little day ago this man too looked over his accounts and reckoned up his
worth; he too had fixed the day on which he thought his ship would dock. And
now, O gods, how far he lies from his destination! Why, doom is everywhere, at
any time. And other things betray, not just the sea alone. Look how the sol-
dier's weapons fail him. You see the consummation of your every hope, and what
happens? The great house you built falls in, crumbles, buries you in the rubble
of your dreams. The man who had no time to lose falls from his chariot and
loses his time forever. The glutton chokes to death; the miser starves of his
own stinginess. Why, if you calculate our chances in this life, what do they
cry but death? Shipwreck is everywhere. But I hear someone object: those who
drown at sea die unburied. Lord, lord, as though it mattered how this death-
bound flesh should die! Fire or water or the wear and tear of time, what does
it matter? Death or death: the end is always the same. But objections again:
wild beasts may mutilate the body. And so? Is the fire that someday cremates
your corpse more friendly? Gentle fire, the cruelest death to which an angry
master can sentence his slave? Why, what madness all this frantic pother is,
these great efforts to annihilate our bodies completely, so they won't be muti-
lated after death!"



And so Lichas' body was burned on a bonfire gathered and laid by the hands of
those he hated. Eumolpus, meanwhile, composed the epitaph. Fixing his gaze on
the distant horizon as though searching for inspiration...




XIII


THE ROAD TO CROTON



[116] So we buried Lichas as well as we could and set out in the direction we
had decided upon. Not long afterward, we arrived, drenched with sweat, at the
peak of a mountain, and from here we could see, no great distance away, a large
town perched on the crest of a high hill. Since we were traveling completely
blindly, we had no idea where we were, but we learned from a peasant that the
town was Croton, one of the oldest cities of Italy, and once the foremost. Our
curiosity aroused, we questioned him for details of the people who inhabited
that famous place; how in particular, we wanted to know, did they earn their
livelihood now that the long wars had destroyed their old prosperity.

"Strangers," said our informant, if you are merchants, let me advise you to
change your plans and look for some other way of earning your living there.
If, however, you belong to that class of cultured men-of-the-world who can
sustain with ease a lifetime of lying, the road you are walking runs right to
riches. In that town literature and the arts go utterly unhonored; eloquence
there has no prestige; and those who live the good and simple life find no
admirers. Any man you meet in that town you may be certain belongs to one of
two classes: the makers of wills and those who pursue the makers of wills.
You will find no fathers there, for those with natural heirs of their own are
regarded as pariahs. A father is someone who is never invited to dinner, nev-
er entertained, who, in short, is compelled to spend his life, outcast and
excluded, among the poor and obscure. Those, however, who remain bachelors in
perpetuity and have no close relatives are held in the highest honor and es-
teem: they and they alone are men of honor and courage, brave as lions, para-
gons without spot or flaw. In short, sirs, you are going to a place which is
like a countryside ravaged by the plague, a place in which you will see only
two things: the bodies of those who are eaten, and the carrion crows who eat
them."

[117] More astute than the rest of us, Eumolpus considered this new situa-
tion very carefully, declaring that such a method of getting rich did not at
all displease him. At first I took this as mere whimsey, some passing poetic
fantasy, but he was quite serious. "I only wish," he said, "we could afford
better scenery and props for the little comedy I have in mind. More expensive
clothing, for instance, would help; and if we could manage to travel more
comfortably, we could sustain our little illusion somewhat better. No, gen-
tlemen, if the choice were mine, I'd set to work right now and in no time at
all I'd make every one of you a rich man."

For my part, I promised faithfully to do anything he should ask of me so long
as there was no objection to my wearing the same clothes I had worn during
the robbery of Lycurgus' villa or to making use of our plunder. "As for any
sums required for our immediate needs," I added, "surely the Mother of gods
and men will supply us with all her usual generosity."

"Very well, then," said Eumolpus, "let's write the plot of our little play
right now. Now if no one objects, I'll take the part of the master."

This suggestion seemed harmless enough, and no one dared to object. But in
order to keep the secret from ever being divulged, we all took a solemn oath
to obey Eumolpus in everything, to endure burning, imprisonment, flogging
or even death by the sword. In short, like gladiators, we dedicated ourselves
utterly, body and soul, to the service of our master. Then, when the oath
of service had been administered, we gathered around our master and saluted
him and learned from his lips the plot of our play.

Eumolpus, it seemed, had recently lost his only son, a boy of great eloquence
and a promising future. Prostrated by grief and unable to bear the daily
sight of his son's friends and dependents or even to look at the grave, the
poor old man had tried to forget his sorrow by leaving his native land. Then,
as though he had not suffered enough already, he had been shipwrecked, and
his losses in the wreck had exceeded twenty millions. It was not, however,
the loss that grieved him but the fact that, having no servants, he could no
longer recognize his own importance in the world. In Africa, moreover, he
possessed in land and capital investments a sum equivalent to thirty millions;
and as for slaves, he had such an army of them scattered over the farms of
Numidia that he could, had he wished, have sacked Carthage.

As the finishing touches, we suggested that Eumolpus should cough constantly,
complain now and then of diarrhea, and loudly proclaim that all food set be-
fore him was revolting stuff. The only subjects of his conversation must be
gold and silver, the atrocious returns on his farms, and the intractable ster-
ility of the soil. Every day without fail, moreover, he must scrutinize his
accounts and his will must be totally revised every thirty days. Finally, as
the crowning detail, he must invariably call us by the wrong names whenever
he asked for something, so that it would look as though he couldn't remember
which servants were with him and which were still in Africa.

So, having concerted our plan of action, we prayed the gods to grant us suc-
cess in our venture, and set off on our journey. But Giton stumbled under
the weight of his unaccustomed load, while the porter we had hired, a worth-
less shirker by the name of Corax, kept setting his load down, cursing our rush
and threatening to throw our luggage away or run off with it. "What do
you think I am," he grumbled, "a beast of burden, a boat for carry-in
rocks? I hired out as a man, dammit, not a horse. What's more, I'm as free
as you are, though my father left me a poor man." Not content with grumbl-
ing and cursing, he kept lifting his leg and laying down a barrage of
smelly farts, while Giton roared with laughter at his impudence and match-
ed his every noise, fart for fart...




XIV


EUMOLPUS ON THE WRITING OF POETRY



[118] "In my opinion," Eumolpus declared, "many young people nowadays
who write verse do so in the insane delusion that poetry is an easy art. Why,
no sooner have most of them mastered the bare rudiments of a meter and
wrestled some flimsy idea into stanza form than they think they're standing
on the very peak of Helicon. Take those budding lawyers of ours, for example.
You must have seen them, I think, rushing away from the courtroom to soothe
their jangled nerves by turning out a poem or two, as though the Muses ran a
rest haven for tired lawyers and poetry were mere child's play as compared
with grinding out one of those epigram-studded orations of theirs. Serious
poets, of course, despise this dilettante approach to their art; from hard
experience they know that the imagination is utterly incapable of conceiving,
let alone producing, a real poem unless the poet's mind has been literally
saturated in the poetry of the past. Cliché and cheap language, for instance,
must be ruthlessly resisted. No great poetry has ever been founded on collo-
quial language, language that has been, so to speak, debased and corrupted
by popular usage. Its motto is that of Horace:

　　　　　I loathe the vulgar crowd, and shun it.

Again, no reference or allusion, no idea not strictly relevant to the inner
logic of the poem can be admitted; the texture of great poetry is intrinsic;
its beauty is formal and internal. Witness in this connection the work of
Homer and the lyric poets; or of our own Roman Vergil, or that painstaking
formal rightness that gives the poetry of Horace its peculiar felicity. As for
the others, they either missed the true road, or seeing how stern a road it
was, timidly turned away.

"Any poet, for instance, who undertakes an epic on our own civil wars must
inevitably collapse under the sheer mass and weight of his subject unless
he has trained himself to write, as it were, with the whole literature of
the past in his bones, a whole tradition at his finger tips. In any case,
epic is not a matter of writing chronicles in verse: historians can do that
sort of thing far more effectively. No, true epic requires freedom from
strict historical fact. The poet must be given that freedom he needs to dev-
elop his poem according to its own inner logic, to construct, if he wishes,
sudden wrenching reversals of human fortune, to arrange for divine intervent-
ions, and so on; free, in short, to construct that whole, fabulous, complex,
allusive fabric that great epic at all times demands. Only through such
freedom can the poet attain his proper goal: a poem moving with all the pas-
sion and power of prophetic speech, language, as it were, gone wild with div-
inity; not some dry humdrum scrannel narrative hemmed in by a niggling piety
toward attested fact. Something, if you like, along the lines of the following
little effort of my own; though you must bear in mind that it still lacks
the finishing touches:


[119] THE CIVIL WAR


Lord and master of the world, our Roman stood supreme,
on land, on sea, and where the daystar dawned and
　　　plunged;
but unappeased. Everywhere his cargoed keels
swirled the marble water white; but if, beyond, unknown,
some landfall lay, some shore touched to amber by the
　　　blaze of gold,
Rome called it foe, Rome dealt it fate. Through war to
　　　wealth
we hacked our way.
　　　　　　　　　Boredom and greed.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Old pleasures palled,
decayed. Attrition of dirty hands, pawing, soiling.
And the savor eroded, the bloom of goodness rubbed away.
Vulgarity by plenty spawned.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Now rarity seemed all,
plunder of boredom born.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　At Corinth, soldiers of Rome,
gaping, connoisseurs of bronze, collectors of antiques.
And the gashed earth bleeding:
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　the red rocks ripped away,
the marbles, the rare, the rose, the porphyries pryed up,
peers of ocean's purple.
　　　　　　　　　　　　And the plunder:
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Numidia a waste;
desert through Cashmere, the splendid fleeces shorn away;
Arabia ravished, the spices scattered.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Rome rampant
on a victim world.
　　　　　　　　　　　New shapes of slaughter everywhere,
Peace a pool of blood.
　　　　　　　　　　　With gold the hunters' snares are set:
driving through Africa, on and on; the hunters at Ham-
　　　mon,
and the beaters thrashing the thickets where the flailing
　　　tiger screams.
Hunters, hawkers of death. And the market for murder at
　　　Rome:
fangs in demand. At sea sheer hunger prowls the ships;
on silken feet the sullen tiger pads his gilded cage,
crouches at Rome, and leaps! And the man, gored and
　　　dying,
while the crowd goes wild.
I see the shame, unspeakable:
the shame of Rome, the shape of doom to come.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　The boys,
epheboi,
　　　　　　and the Persian steel, the slashing blade
descending, and manhood, budding, shorn away, eunuchs,
shorn of love to stay for lust the apple years,
the ripe but running time, while Nature seeks her own
and cannot find.
　　　　　　　　　　　Finds instead:
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　perversion everywhere--
the mincing gait, effeminate, the girl-men, their hair
curried to silk, and the clothes, so many and so strange,
to mew our manhood up.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Or find the story in a table told:
a plank of citronwood, this limed and blonded board
chopped from Africa, this whorled and golden-knotted
　　　grain
whose every lovely blemish makes its gold comparisons
seem vile, snaring the senses, reflecting in its sheen
that slick, expensive glow, a society of slaves,
parvenus in purple and the raffish, rabble guests,
drowned in drink: a barren and ignoble board,
for which the Roman legions sack the world with steel,
caterers of greed.
　　　　　　　　　　　Gluttons of genius, the belly inventive,
scouring Sicilian waters for the parrot-fish, the scare;
and the wrasse borne swimming to the table, still alive;
the oysters from Lucrino torn, the fabulous, the rare,
jogging jaded hunger with the fillip of expense.
And Phasis of pheasants plundered, and the dull shore
　　　dumb,
and the leaves, dumb of song where the slow wind soughs.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　At Rome
rottenness, power garbled with gold.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Quirites of cash,
Romans bought by the sellers of sops, and the golden rain,
staining the ballots yellow.
The people, the Senate corrupt.
Senatus Romanus,
turned auctioneer, bidder for a fee,
consulta for cash. And freedom lies withered in nerveless
　　　hands
while the elders grabble for gold.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Greatness ripened to rot,
ipsaque maiestas,
　　　　　　　　　　　　old majesty gone in the teeth;
the dignitas slimed over, Romanitas decayed:
foetor the color of gold.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And Rome in Cato rejected;
honor cast out with Cato. But sadder than Cato that man
who conquered Cato, who wrenched his rod of office away.
Here Rome's ruin was; here in Cato, Rome's decay;
not Cato's sole defeat, but Rome in Cato symbolized,
mos majorum in one man, Rome in him rejected:
self-betrayed, self-sold, self-prey and quarry made.
Whence no avenger rose.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And usury, a rot:
the people drowning in a double sea, by debt pulled down,
by usury,
　　　　　　 a filth.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　With usura hath no man a house;
no man's body but by debt is bound, in mortmain hard
of usura,
　　　　　　　　the rot within, the impostume in the guts,
foetor-infestation that flameth the blood to fever,
that bays the body down.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Usura, a ruin,
whence springeth war, whence revolution breaketh;
whence desperation taketh arms, and profligate and pauper
make cause together. Beggary hath daring.
O Rome,
　　　　　　in such a sewer sunk, in such a sleep,
what surgery could cure, what skill could waken into life,
but war, the rage of war, the passion of the steel?
And war arose:
　　　　　　　　　 [120] three generals did Fortuna raise;
three by Enyo died, each chief by goddess War
struck down in death, each mounded, buried under arms.
In Parthia hath Crassus perished; lieth Pompey dead
by Libyan shore; and last of three, the blood of Caesar
staineth red ungrateful Rome. Each in death divided;
as though the earth could not have borne such greatness in
　　　a grave,
they are ashes, they are scattered. Such is glory,
such its wages.
　　　　　　　　　　Between Dicharchis' fields and Parthenope
cleaves a place, a chasm blasted out, in earth incised,
where underground Cocytus slides and Stygian air
as through a funnel spills, freighted with the sulphur
　　　fumes
of hell:
　　　　　　　Solfatara called,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　where greenery is gone,
no meadow yields its harvest, where the turf springs not,
nor groweth glad nor green, nor thickets loudly ring
with springtime song of birds, descanting of their loves
in rivalry of voice. But Chaos holds this place,
and brooding rocks of pumice black, and cypresses,
tall tumuli of shade, mounding all the darkness
with a barrowed gloom.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Here it was that Father Dis
raised from hell his awful head, his halo shot
with funeral fires, flecked with charnel ashes white,
and cried to winged Fortune where she flew:
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"O Fortune,
of gods and man disposer,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　despiser of the stable world,
you who changeth all,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　power who will not stay,
who will not keep
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　O relinquisher, O forsaker,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　say
do you not feel the weight of Rome, this dying mass
that grinds you down beyond endurance now?
Look:
degenerates inherit Rome, despise their ancient strength,
supporting barely what great hands have raised.
See:
their greed goes everywhere, their sumptuary greed,
gold in ruin ripened. And the houses intricate of gold;
their homes invade the skies, their moles expel the seas.
Ocean in their meadows burgeons, and all condition
turns awry, as man, rebellious, mocks his fate
contra naturam, invaders of sky and sea.
And now
my earth invaded; Rome assaults the buried dead,
and earth before their crazed foundations opens wide,
and hollowed mountains groan with caves and caverns cry,
and while my ravaged marbles garb their mortal pride,
the ghosts and shades of hell assert their hope of heaven,
and the dead demand the light.
Therefore, Fortune, arise,
gird your brows for war, and hound these Romans on!
Whelm my kingdom with the legionary dead of Rome
and give me blood!
Blood!
Since Sulla's sword drank deep
and earth, convulsed in labor, brought to light that crop
of ruddy wheat, that tasseled gory yield of war,
no human blood has touched my lips, no rain of blood
has washed the hungry body of Tisiphoner
[121] So he spoke,
and stretched to take her hand in his, and as he reached,
earth, dehiscent, gaped and cracked.
Spoke Fortune then:
"O Father,
you for whom Cocytus flows intestinal
through hell,
if I may speak the future unreproved,
thy wish shall come to pass. My anger chafes as hot;
my fury flareth too. All, all my gifts
to beetling Rome I now revoke, rescind my love with hate.
I who piled these buildings high shall pull them low,
incinerating Rome, glutting my awful hunger
on the blood of men.
Lo,
I see the field of Philippi
with double slaughter strewn, Thessaly ablaze
with funeral fires and Iberia interred in blood.
Clangor of war woundeth the ear. And now, O Nile,
I see thy freighted waters burst their desert bounds,
lapping at Libya; and Apollo's arms at Actium,
and the peoples afraid, the soldiery in terror.
O Father,
open the jaws of earth and summon down these dead,
these stricken multitudes, more murdered men
than Charon's little craft could ferry over hell:
ghosts requiring fleets.
O pale Tisiphone,
fulfill thyself in ruin, rend the body of this world,
and let this earth, a mangled wreckage, spindle down
beneath the waters of the Styx."
[122] Scarcely had she spoken
when the clouds splintered, and shafts of lightning cleft
　　　the sky,
then vanished, and the Father of the dead sank slowly
　　　down,
subsiding into hell, and wrapped the mantling earth
about him as he sank, in terror of his brother's fire.
Then signs were seen, murder made manifest in omens
declaring doom.
His golden features flecked with blood,
the blazoned Titan sun withdrew, hiding his eye
against pollution from the civil wars below.
And Cynthia, the rising moon, now swollen to the full,
snuffed out her light and held no candle to the crime.
The mountains broke and avalanches thundered down,
cascading cliffs. And slow the unfamiliar rivers ran
between their ancient banks, a feeble, trickling flow,
arid, dying. Clangor of armor in the air;
bewilderment of bronze, as bugles shrilled the heavens,
arousing Mars. And Etna spoke, erupting rocks;
flambeaux of mountain-ruin arched the midnight sky,
rumbling with light. Among the tombs the dead arose,
and ghosts went gibbering with menacings and cries,
diro stridore,
while at night, entraining stars,
the awful comet climbed, a finger of fire, streaking on,
pointing to fire, and Jupiter, a rain of blood,
drizzled on the world.
Ephemeral, these omens flared,
then stopped, and Caesar threw procrastination off,
exchanging arms of Caul for the steel of civil war,
and drove for his revenge.
High upon the windy Alps,
where once a god of Greece in servitude had gone,
where the slopes in easy grade descend, accessible,
there lies an altared place, sacred to Hercules.
Here with solid sheeted ice the winter seals the peaks;
a mounded hulk so white against the silvered sky,
the crags and candid air seem one, continuous
with snow. Here the dulcet summer does not touch;
here there blows no gentle breath of spring, but glacier
has it all, so buttressed up in rigid ice,
so riveted with snow, it seems the muscled rocks
could hold the weighted world.
Hither Caesar came,
exultant legions at his back. Here he camped,
surveying from this vantage-ground where Italy below
her lovely tapestries unrolled. And raising his hands
to the stars, he cried:
"O Jupiter, omnipotent,
and thou, O land of Saturn, that rejoiceth in my deeds,
with my triumphal arches crowned,
bear me witness:
not of my own will do I call the god of war;
unwillingly, I swear, I raise my hands to strike.
But by my hurts compelled to war--
I, Caesar,
exiled from my country while I reddened Rhine with
　　　blood,
while I shut the Alpine gates against the driving Gauls
and saved our Capitol from storm.
Of what am I accused?
Victory.
Because I rode in triumph sixty times,
because I cut the Germans down, I am an outcast now,
hounded from my home.
And who sees treason in my victories?
Who watches while I fight?
Cowards, mercenary men,
bribed by gold, the slavish stepsons of my mother Rome.
But not so easily, not without revenge,
shall cowards bind my arms.
On to victory!
March on, my men, and plead our common cause with steel.
One common crime arraigns us all; one single sentence
dooms us each. And so, to all my thanks are owed:
I do not win alone.
But now, since punishment
rewards my victory, since conquest stands accused
of treason, let Fortune be our judge.
Let war begin,
and show your mettle once again.
My plea is done:
armed, among so many men, I cannot lose."
So he spoke, when suddenly Apollo's bird,
the mantic raven, sliced the air with beating wings,
omina Iaeta,
with augury that all was well;
and from the left, the old, adjoining, sacred grove,
strange voices cried approval out, and tongues of flame
flashed up. And Phoebus swelled with unaccustomed light,
glistering with aureoles of fire.
[123] Encouraged, Caesar
gave the word to march, unfurled the flags of war,
and, striding on ahead, paced his daring's way,
unparalleled.
At first that hard and glacial ground
resisted not; severe and silent lay the snows;
the cold was kind. But when the squadrons cracked
the misted ice, and skittish horses shouldered through
the chains of cold that locked the streams, and the snows
thawed,
then suddenly, through mountain gorges plunging down,
the torrents burst in spate--
but then, as though commanded,
stopped short, their courses caught, cascadings tamed
to ice, immobile, all that rippling, liquid thing
turned hatchet-hard. If treacherous before, now worse:
slippery, it mocked the feet, no purchase gave.
Horses, men and arms in regimental ruin
fell. And then, compounding chaos, came the rains,
as the clouds, beneath the flailing of the glacial winds
ondriving, loosed their loads, and the unimpeded gusts,
like hurricanes, cracked down. And whirlwinds were;
and from the ruptured skies the hail descended, swollen,
battering the world. And rain in cloudburst fell,
inundating all, and wave on wave of sudden ice,
till all the world lay overwhelmed in white defeat
of snow. White the rivers ran; the stars were gray.
A white, defeated world.
But Caesar was not stopped.
His spear his staff, he crushed the bristling ground beneath
his feet,
as when great Hercules comes striding down
from Caucasus returning, strides and does not stop,
or as when fierce Jupiter in strength and rage came
springing from Olympus to hurl the armed giants down
in massive doom.
But now while Caesar strode in wrath
upon the Alps, Rumor whirled with terror swift
to Rome, and soared and perched upon the Palatine.
There struck the statues of the gods with brazen news,
and Roman thunder boomed:
the fleets of Caesar throng
the sea;
through Alpine passes, pouring down, the horsemen come,
a stain of German blood,
sanguine Germano,
the blood of Rome, germanely red.
Arms and murder,
arma, cruor, caedes,
incendiary war.
Images of total war, whence confusion cometh,
whence panic in the heart, minds in counsel divided:
what the better course? Some prefer to flee
by land; others choose the sea, as though wild water were
safer, surer than the earth of Rome. One thinks of
fight,
and so fulfills the Fates. In fear, the measure of flight:
how far they flee, so great their fear. And the people,
populus Romanus,
a sight of shame,
pricked by fear,
abandoning their citied Rome. Are glad to flee.
Look: their homes deserted at a whisper of alarm,
and fear, fear:
Romans in terror, clutching their children,
and the household gods,
Penates Laresque,
hidden in clothes, the women weeping, and the men in
tears,
calling farewell to their homes and cursing with their
cries--
as though a curse could kill--their distant enemies.
Clasping of wives, and young men shouldering their
fathers,
bent down in weakness by the unaccustomed weight,
youth burdened with age. Each takes the thing he loves,
while fools drag all away, bear the booty of their homes
to war:
and all is now as when the sudden wind
rageth on the sea, lashing the waters to fury,
and the spar helps not the sailor, nor wheel, nor rope
from rigging torn, but one man builds a flimsy raft
of timbered pine in planks; one heads for quiet coves
where surf breaks not; another runs, anywhere running,
entrusting life to luck. But why lament these little things?
Pompey the Great,
Magnus
he who trembled Pontus
once,
who walked upon those fabled shores where far Hydaspes
coils its sluggish way,
he, the pirate-scourge,
upon whose triumphings great Jupiter went pale
with wounded pride and spite,
to whom the raging Pontus,
Pompey, frightened, ran,
twin consuls in his train, and let his titles lapse
and pride of empire fall, and Fortune saw at last
great Pompey's back,
saw Magnus running.
[124] Doom,
contagion of doom, as man's disasters sweep the skies,
and fear in heaven swells the mortal rout.
Lo,
dejectedly they leave, the milder, gentler gods,
abandoning the world, with loathing turn away
in exile from the stricken earth where frantic armies
dye the night with doom.
First goeth Peace,
she of the white arms, the white arms bruised with war--
Peace, hiding her conquered head beneath her helm,
descending to the downward world of Dis, implacable.
And with her gentle Faith; goeth Justice too,
lustitia with streaming hair, and the lady of order,
goddess Concord too, in tears, with mantle torn.
So these gentle gods went down.
But as they went,
the gates of Dis in darkness yawned, spitting up
the horded gods of hell.
Came the Fury first,
Erinys, fiend of horror; issueth Bellona;
Megaera moveth forth, with whirling torches leapeth;
cometh Treachery, Destruction cometh on;
stalketh Death, that leached, that pallid presence. And
there
among them moveth Madness, deity amok,
bursting bonds as when a warhorse shatters loose
and the reins are snapped; so she, Madness, breaketh forth,
her gory head flung high, with helmet bound by blood,
and livid, under blood, a face so slashed with scars
it seemed a living wound--breaketh, clasping shield,
battered, slashed by blade, moveth, with blazing torches,
to wrap the world in flame.
Earth felt these gods,
the weight of deity awry and the world unbalanced.
And the stars shook, reeling, and sought their former poise.
And the fundaments of heaven slid, toppling in ruin,
as the greater gods broke forth.
Issued Venus,
champion of Caesar; came Pallas too, with Romulus,
brandishing his spear, while Phoebus with his sister,
and Mercury, the son of Maia, came to Pompey's side;
and with them Pompey's peer in wandering and war,
Hercules, hero of Tiryns.
Shrilled the trumpets then,
and Discord with disheveled hair raised her awful head
to the dark skies,
Discord,
her face a scurf of blood,
eyes with livid bruises wet, with broken fangs
a mail of rust and filth, and her lolling tongue spilled
its dribbled poison down. Snakes twined her face;
her tattered clothes were torn above her writhing breasts,
and in her shaking hands she shook a flaming torch.
Came on,
leaving Tartarus below where dark Cocytus
coils its way,
striding the high peaks, the Apennines,
and here from vantage-ground looked down on earth
below,
the lands, the shores, the armies streaming on and on
across the globe.
And cried aloud:
"O peoples of this
earth,
To arms!
to arms!
Rise in your fury, O nations,
and seal with flaring torches all this citied world!
here no refuge is:
none, not woman, not child,
nor helpless age, shall safety find.
This earth itself
shall quake, its shattered houses in rebellion fall.
Thou, Marccllus, hold the law!
Inflame the mob,
O Curio!
Let war brook no rebuke, O Lentolust
And you, O Caesar, why such hesitation now?
Batter clown the gates, rend the very walls away,
whirl their wealth away!
Do you abandon Rome,
O Pompey?
Then go, make your stand by Epidamnus'
shore,
and dye the shores of Thessaly with blood of Rome."
So Discord spoke, and what she said was done on earth.




XV


LIFE AT CROTON



Eumolpus poured out his epic with a great, bursting torrent of eloquence,
and at last we entered Croton. That night we ate and slept at a dirty lit-
tle inn, but early the next morning we set out to find quarters a little
more in keeping with the grandeur of our pretensions. On the way, however,
we ran into a crowd of legacy-hunters who promptly asked us who we were
and where we came from. As prearranged, we answered with such a flood of
information that they were quickly satisfied on both counts and accepted
our story without further question. Immediately a great struggle broke
out among them to see which could shower Eumolpus with the most money...



All of them did their best to curry favor with Eumolpus by heaping him
with presents...



[125] And so we lived for some time at Croton . . . Eumolpus, drunk with
his success, had so far forgotten the past that he began to boast to his
intimates that no one in Croton dared to cross him and that, for any
crimes we might commit, he could easily get us off through the influence
of his new friends. For my part, thanks to the excellent food and the
other gifts which Fortune showered on us in prodigious profusion, I had
begun to put on weight again and had almost convinced myself that hick
was no longer my enemy. Still, I couldn't help reflecting now and then
on our present life and how it had come about. "What would happen," I
used to wonder, "if one of these legacy-chasers had the wit to send off
to Africa for information and then exposed us? Or suppose Eumolpus'
hired servant got bored with his present luck and dropped a hint to his
friends, or gave the whole show away out of spite? No mistake about it:
we'd have to run for it, right back to our old life of poverty. Why,
we'd have to start begging again. And, gods in heaven, an outlaw's life
is a miserable business. Always waiting to be punished."





XVI


CIRCE



[126] "Your good looks have made you so conceited," said Chrysis, scold-
ing me, "that instead of giving your love away, you offer yourself for
sale like some common whore. If not, why do you comb your hair with such
fastidious care and plaster your face with cosmetics? How else do you ex-
plain that affected, drooping languor in your eyes and the way you walk,
those tiny mincing steps you take? That's what I think you are, a plain
whore. I may not know anything about omens and astrology and such, but
I can tell a man's character from his face and I guess his thoughts from
the way he walks. So, if you'd prefer to sell us what we want, you have
found a buyer. If, on the other hand, you would rather do the gallant
thing and bestow your beauty freely, we shall be deeply indebted. As for
your admission that you are merely a humble slave, that only makes my
mistress want you more. Some women, as you probably know, are only arouse-
d by a lower-class lover; only when they catch sight of some slave or
footman in a short tunic do their passions kindle. Some of them even dev-
elop a hankering for gladiators or mule drivers smothered in dust or one
of those cheap actors who expose themselves on the stage. My mistress be-
longs to this class of women. She dodges the rich men in the orchestra,
skips fourteen rows back and looks for her lovers among the riffraff in
the gallery."

Needless to say, my vanity was enormously tickled by this flattering prop-
osition. "It wouldn't be you, by any chance," I asked her, "who want me
so much, would it?"

"Don't flatter Yourself," replied the girl, bursting out laughing at the
clumsiness of my question. "I have never slept with a slave yet, and god
forbid that I should start by climbing into bed with a convicted criminal.
No, I leave it to the married women to kiss the scars of a flogging. I may
be only a slave, young man, but my taste runs more to knights." I hardly
need to add that I was impressed by their contrary inclinations, the maid
with the tastes of a lady of birth and breeding, the lady with the appe-
tites of a chambermaid.

For some time we chatted on, joking and teasing and flirting. Finally I
suggested that the girl should bring her mistress into the grove of plane
trees nearby. She immediately agreed and, hitching up her tunic, slipped
away into the swag of laurels which grew along the path. In a few minutes
she returned, leading her mistress from her hiding place and seating her
at my side.

What shall I say of that lady? In beauty she was more perfect than any mas-
terpiece, incomparably more lovely than any artist's dream. Her hair, in
long natural waves, rippled down over her shoulders; her brow was exquisit-
ely small and her eyebrows, arching softly from the edges of her temples,
rose almost joining just above her eyes. And her eyes! They shone like the
stars on a moonless night. Her nose was gently tilted and she had such a
mouth as Praxitcles must have dreamed for his Diana. Her chin, her neck,
her hands and tiny feet, a sheen of white beneath their delicate straps of
gold, must have eclipsed the marble of Paros. And suddenly, for the first
time, my old love for Doris vanished away into thin air...



What has happened, Jove, that your thunders are not
　　　　heard,
　　that deity is dumb, a silent tale in heaven?
Now, now were the time to let your bull's head lower,
　　to clothe your body in the candor of the swan.
Here is the true Danae. Dare only touch her flesh
　　and yours shall be by such a heat so drawn...



[127] In her happiness she smiled so sweetly that it seemed as though I saw
the risen moon, Cynthia in her splendor, break through the scudding clouds.
She spoke shyly and sweetly, a grace in every word, every gesture. "Young
man," she said, "if you do not despise a woman of birth, a woman who this
year for the first time has tasted love, let me be your sister. I know, you
have a brother too, but why should this prevent your taking me as your sis-
ter? As such I offer you my love. Deign only to accept my kiss."

"On the contrary," I replied, "it is I who beg you, who implore you by your
beauty, not to scorn me, to receive a poor stranger among your worshipers.
Only let me adore you, and I shall be your loyal devotee. And do not think
I kneel before your altar now with empty hands. In token of my love, lady,
I freely offer you my brother, my Giton."

"What!" she exclaimed, "you offer me your brother, without whom you cannot
live, who holds your life suspended on his lips, whom you love as I now wish
you might love me?"

She spoke with such a grace, her words fell so sweetly on my ears that I
seemed for an instant to be hearing the songs of the Sirens floating on the
gentle air. I sat there in ecstasy and suddenly a shaft of light, a light
more splendid than the sun's, burst upon my eyes. Dazzled, I asked my god-
dess her name.

"Didn't my maid tell you," she said, "that my name is Circe? No, I am not
that famous Circe who was daughter of the sun, nor has my mother ever made
the wheeling sun stop still until her love was done. But, if the Fates bring
us two together now, I shall know that heaven has intervened. Yes: I can feel
it now, that strange insensible power of some god acting on us both, drawing
us together. Circe must love Polyaenos for a reason: always from the meeting
of those names a great fire is born. So take me if you want me. Have no fear:
no eye is watching now. Your brother is far away."

And folding me in her arms, those arms softer than the wings of a bird, she
drew me gently to the ground where a thousand flowers bloomed:

Such flowers as once on Ida's peak the fruitful earth in gladness spilled,
when Jupiter with Juno lay in lawful love, and all his heart was touched to
flame: bursting roses blew, and violets, and rush, and from the fields, like
snow, the sudden lilies laughed. Such earth, it seemed, as summons Venus to
the grass: the light spilled brighter, bursting on our hidden love...



There, ambushed in the grass, we lay, wrapped in each other's arms, exchang-
ing kisses by the thousands, on the road to sterner play .. .



[128] "Tell me the truth," she cried, "do my kisses offend you? Is my breath
bad? Do my armpits smell? If it's none of these things, is it because you're
afraid of Giton?"

At this I went purple with shame, completely losing even what little strength
I had left. I felt as though my whole body had suddenly wilted away. "For
god's sake," I begged her, "take pity on my misery. Don't mock me. I must be
under a spell. Someone must have cursed me . .."



"Am I so ugly, Chrysis?" she asked. "Am I dirty or untidy? Is there some blem-
ish on my beauty? Tell me the truth: don't deceive your mistress. I must be
guilty of something, but what have I done?"

Receiving no answer from the maid, she snatched a mirror from her hands. Then,
one after another, she made all of those lovely faces, those seductive looks,
that normally make a lover go wild with delight. Finally she leaped up, shook
the earth from her grass-stained cloak and turned away in the direction of the
temple of Venus, while I lay there in utter misery, trembling all over like
one of the damned in hell, wondering if I were now cut off forever from my only
hope of joy:

As when a dream in the dead sleep of night deceives our wandering eyes, and we
see beneath the digger's spade earth spill her hidden treasures out, and greedy
hands go grabbling after gold, and then the sudden sweat, and the twisting
knife of fear that other men may know, may find some golden clue and claim our
cache as theirs. And then the dream recedes, the conscious mind is mocked;
reality swirls back, and the cheated heart goes wild for what it lost, moving,
groping with all its strength among the shadows of the past, like a ghost, ob-
sessed...



[129] "Thank you, Encolpius," said Giton, "for a love as pure as Socrates'.
Never did Alcibiades sleep more chastely in his master's bed than I in yours."



"Believe me, little brother," I replied, "I no longer recognize myself at all.
That part of my body with which I once was an Achilles is dead and buried.'

Terrified, I suppose, that if he were caught alone with me, it would give
rise to gossip, the boy tore himself from my arms and rushed away to a room
in the inner part of the house.




XVII


A SECOND ATTEMPT



Chrysis entered my room and handed me a letter from her mistress. The mes-
sage read as follows:

　　My dear Polyaenos:

　　　　If I were a lecherous woman, I might justifiably complain that your
　　conduct towards me had been offensive in the extreme, or that you had
　　deliberately deceived me. On the contrary, I find myself grateful for
　　your somewhat drooping interest. Hollow pleasures perhaps, but only
　　rarely have I experienced such a sweet protraction of the prelude to
　　performance.

　　　　In any case, I am anxious to hear how you are and whether or not you
　　were able to walk home on your own. At least I have heard doctors say
　　that impotent men are incapable of even standing up straight. So, my
　　dear, you must take good care of yourself, or your paralysis will be
　　total. Never before, I confess, have I seen a young man in such in-
　　firm health or so close to death. One might almost say you were dead
　　already. Clearly, if the chill spreads to your hands and knees as
　　well, you had best call in the undertakers.

　　　　What's to be done? Despite your shameful treatment of me, your
　　present condition is far too precarious for me to withhold any possi-
　　bility of a cure. But the solution lies with Giton. In my opinion,
　　you will recover your manhood only if you avoid sleeping with
　　your little friend for at least three days.

　　　　As for myself, I feel confident that I shall have no trouble in
　　finding a more ardent lover. Neither my mirror nor my reputation
　　lie.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Keep well--if you can,

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Circe

Chrysis waited until I had finished reading this ironic little message
of reproach before breaking in. "Accidents like yours are not uncom-
mon," she said, "particularly in these parts where there are witches
who can pull the moon right down from the sky. But generally their
spells don't last very long, and we'll look into it. In the meantime,
however, write a sweet little note back to my mistress. Be frank about
your failure and ask her to forgive you. I might as well tell you that
she hasn't been herself since the day you humiliated her."

Overjoyed to comply with the little maid's request, I sat down and
wrote off the following reply:

　　[130] Dearest Circe:

　　　　I confess, dear lady, that I have sinned. After all, I am a man,
　　and a young man at that. But never until now have I committed a
　　mortal sin.

　　　　I am a criminal and I admit it. Any punishment you choose to
　　inflict, lady, I richly deserve. Thus I confess that I betrayed a
　　friend; I killed a man; I committed sacrilege. For each of these
　　crimes you have only to prescribe the punishment. If your sen-
　　tence is death, I shall bring you my sword in person. If you or-
　　der me flogged, I shall strip off my clothes and run to you
　　naked. But before you pass sentence, remember this: it was less
　　myself than my instrument that failed. As your soldier, lady,
　　I stand ready to die in the breach, but I am a soldier now with-
　　out a spear. Who despoiled me so, I do not know. Perhaps my
　　hopes outran my heat; excess of passion perhaps cut off my ple-
　　asure prematurely. I cannot explain what happened. You tell me,
　　however, to beware of total paralysis. As though that sickness
　　could be worse which deprives me of my power to possess you.
　　Lady, my whole apology comes to this: I will give you satis-
　　faction if you will permit me to make amends...

Sending Chrysis off with this pledge of improved performance, I turned
my whole attention to my offending body. Renouncing a hot bath as prob-
ably harmful, I contented myself with a quick massage. Then I sat down
to a supper of the strongest and most fortifying foods I could think of:
raw onions followed by snails heads without sauce and a few swallows of
weak wine. Finally, I took a short stroll and then went to bed without
Giton. For I was so anxious to make amends to Circe that the mere thought
of even brushing thighs with Giton terrified me.

[131] Early the next morning I rose feeling refreshed in body and mind,
and walked down to the grove of plane trees where our previous meeting.
had taken place. Nervously recalling that ill-omened assignation, I
tried to calm myself by strolling up and down through the grove while
waiting for my guide, Chrysis. No sooner had I sat down to rest from my
walk--in the very spot where yesterday's accident had taken place--than
Chrysis appeared, followed by a little old woman. After we had exchanged
the usual greetings, Chrysis said, "Well, fastidious lover, have you come
to your senses today?"

Meanwhile the old woman pulled a rainbow-colored scarf from her dress and
proceeded to swathe my neck with it. She then mixed some dust and spittle
into a little ball with her third finger and made a mark on my forehead.
Despite all my resistance...



At the conclusion of her incantations, she commanded me to spit three
times. Next she handed me some pebbles, each of which had been individual-
ly charmed and wrapped in purple cloth, and told me to drop them down my
crotch. Then she reached in with her hand to see what response, if any,
she had awakened. And lo, pat to her spells, that ghostly part of me obey-
ed, inching and lurching into enormous life until it quite filled her hand.
"Ooh, Chrysis," she gasped delightedly, "just look at the hare I've started
for the hunters."



　　There the twining trees had cast their summer shade:
　　cypresses and planes, the berried laurel rustling in the
　　　 breeze,
　　and the great shorn pines, their crowns a-quiver.
　　And there, among the trees, a racing brook ran down,
　　lapping with a chirr of pebbled water all the grove.
　　It seemed a place for love; whereof in witness sang
　　the woodland nightingale, the swallow from the town,
　　through violets and grass, all calling as they flew...



There she lay, languidly stretched out upon the grass. Her neck, white as mar-
ble, rested on a golden cushion and she was lazily fanning herself with a
spray of flowering myrtle. Suddenly catching sight of me, she reddened, blush-
ing, I suppose, to remember her deep humiliation of the previous day. Then,
dismissing her women, she motioned to me to sit down beside her, but screened
her face with her branch of myrtle to conceal her embarrassment. At last,
somewhat emboldened by the barrier of flowers, she said, "Well, my paralytic
lover? Have you come here a whole man today?"

"Don't ask me," I answered, "try me." With that, I threw myself into her arms
and, immune at last from any evil spells, took my pleasure of her kisses till
I could kiss no more...



[132] The beauty of his body summoned me to love. Our lips, bruised by an end-
less rain of kisses, murmured our delight, while our hands, tangled with each
other, wove and unwove every way of love, every caress. Then, binding our bodies
together in one supreme embrace, our breathing so confounded on a kiss that we
seemed a single soul...




XVIII


I TAKE MYSELF IN HAND



Stung by this public rebuff and frantic for revenge, she ran off shrieking for
her grooms and ordered them to flog me. Even this savage punishment, however,
failed to appease her fury, and she sent for her spinning-women, the very dregs
of her household, and told them to spit at me. Hiding my face in my hands and
completely dumb with shame--god knows, I deserved to be punished--I was flogged,
spat at, and then thrown bodily out the door. Proselenos was thrown out with
me, Chrysis was flogged, and the whole household went around grumbling, ask-
ing each other in whispers who had upset their mistress so...



For my part, somewhat consoled by the presence of companions in my misery, I
did my best to conceal the stripes of my flogging, knowing perfectly well that
those wounds would please Eumolpus as much as they would distress Giton. But
there was only one means of salvaging the pitiful remnants of my lost honor,
and that was to feign sickness. So I climbed into bed, picked up a razor and
unleashed my full fury against the sole author of my disgrace. Taking him firm-
ly by the hand:

　　Three times with razor raised I tried to lop;
　　three times my trembling fingers let it drop,
　　while he, as limp as cabbage when it's boiled,
　　　　with prickish fright my purpose foiled.

　　For, cold as ice, he shrank, too scared to watch,
　　and screwed his crinkled length against my crotch,
　　so cramped along my gut, so furled and small,
　　　　I could not see to cut at all.

　　Baffled, I mused: how bring the blade to bear?
　　How lop that thing so wee it seemed not there
　　at all? But wait, I thought: if steel won't kill,
　　　　perhaps my verbal engines will.

With that, hunching myself on my elbow, I lashed the laggard with my tongue.
"What do you have to say for yourself," I cried, "you shame of gods and man?
Obscenity, unspeakable sullen pendant, is this what I deserved? To be snatch-
ed from the doors of heaven and spindled down to hell? To have this scandal
of decrepit, limp old age fixed upon my youth, my green and swelling years?
By your mercy, I implore you, declare me cured, or give me my certificate
of death." But utterly unmoved by my bitter reproaches:

He turned his head away and gazed upon the ground,
unstirred, unmoved, as on a windless day
of summer heat, the languid willow leaves lie still,
and wilted poppies on their slender stems hang down...

But suddenly the whole overwhelming shame of this obscene palaver with myself
swept over me. The blood rushed to my head, and I blushed all over to think
how far I had forgotten my self-respect by stooping to argue with that part
of me which no serious man thinks worthy of his thoughts. For some time I lay
there, ruefully rubbing my forehead. Then the absurdity of my shame struck
me. After all, I thought, why not? What's so unnatural or wrong about work-
ing off one's feelings with a little plainspoken abuse? Don't we curse our
guts, our teeth, our heads, when they give us trouble? Didn't Ulysses him-
self have a parley with his heart? Why, the way those heroes in the tragic
plays strut around cursing their eyes, you'd think their eyes had ears. Gouty
people damn their toes; arthritics curse their joints; the crud-eyed blast
their eyes and even toe-stubbers take out their feelings on their feet.

　　　　　　Then why in heaven's name
　　　　　　must every nagging prude
　　　　　　of Cato's ilk cry shame,
　　　　　　denounce my work as lewd,
　　　　　　damning with a look
　　　　　　my guileless, simple art,
　　　　　　this simple, modern book?
　　　　　　To prudes I now assert
　　　　　　my purity of speech;
　　　　　　such candor in my pen
　　　　　　as will not stoop to teach.
　　　　　　I write of living men,
　　　　　　the things they say and do,
　　　　　　of every human act
　　　　　　admitted to be true.
　　　　　　Then where's the shame in that,
　　　　　　if loving men enjoy
　　　　　　the pleasures of the night
　　　　　　whereby each girl and boy
　　　　　　experience delight?
　　　　　　Let prudes in need of proof
　　　　　　heed what Epicurus said,
　　　　　　old master of the truth,
　　　　　　who held that all are led
　　　　　　by their senses to the goal,
　　　　　　life-perfecting Pleasure,
　　　　　　Pleasure is the goal of all,
　　　　　　omnis vitaeque perfector.



Nothing is falser than people's preconceptions and ready-made opinions; no-
thing is sillier than their sham morality...




XIX


OENOTHEA



[133] Finished with my profession of faith, I promptly sent for Giton. "On
your word of honor," I asked him, "answer me the truth: that night when Ascy-
ltus stole you from my bed, did he force you to sleep with him? Or was he
content to pass the night decently by himself?"

Solemnly touching his hands to his eyes, the boy swore by everything holy that
Ascyltus had not so much as touched him...



Kneeling down on the threshold, I made my prayer to my tormentor, Priapus:

Comrade of Bacchus and the nymphs, you whom lovely
　　　　Dione
set as god upon our woodlands in their glory;
O lord of Lesbos, god of Thasos' holy green,
whom Lydia, the seven-streamed, adores beside Hypaepa;
O mentor of Bacchus, comet
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Hear me, dryad-lover,
welcome this humble prayer.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Innocent of harm,
pure in heart, with pious hands, I come to you:
a poor man, in impotence and need, by weakness worn.
I sinned, O lord, yet sinned in part: not all of me
offended. Weakness was my crime, the thing I did not,
could not, do; and being such, was less than crime.
I implore you, lord, purge my tortured soul of guilt;
forgive my petty crime.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And when once more I see
good fortune laugh, then you shall have the gifts
your deity deserves.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　To your shrine shall go
the ram, the father of the flocks, in horned glory;
to you the squealing sow shall lead her suckling young.
And this year's wine shall froth in bowls for you,
and round about your shrine three times shall dance
the randy, drunken lads in praise, O god, of you.



While I was praying, I kept an anxious eye cocked to see if that poor dead
part of me would raise its fallen head. But suddenly Proselenos, her dress
black with ashes and her hair half ripped out, came rushing into the temple.
Snatching me by the hand, she led me through the entranceway and outside...



[134] "What screech-owl," she shrieked at me, "has eaten your manhood away?
Did you step on some dung in the dark? What corpse did you kick by the cross-
road at night? Eh? Why, you can't even redeem yourself with the boy. Look at
you: soft, flabby, limp, huffing and puffing like an old hack on a hill. Ugh.
All that work and sweat for nothing. And as though it weren't enough that you
should have sinned, you have to go and get me in trouble with the gods tool"



She led me unresisting into the priestess' cell. Then, pushing me back on the
bed, she snatched a stick from the back of the door while I lay without a
word of protest, meekly waiting for my beating. Luckily for me, however,
the stick broke at the first stroke and so lessened the force of the blow;
otherwise she would probably have broken both my head and my arm. But this
thought so terrified me that I gave a great groan, burst into tears, and cov-
ering my face with my hands, buried my head in the pillow. Proselenos, equal-
ly upset, collapsed on the bed in tears and began with a shaking voice to com-
plain of the bitterness of being old. This lament, however, was interrupted by
the sudden arrival of Oenothea.

"Well," she exclaimed, "what are you two doing in my room? You look as though
you were sitting beside a freshly dug grave. What, crying on a holiday? Why,
even mourners should be laughing on a day like this."



"Oenothea," said Proselenos, "this poor miserable creature was born under an
unlucky star. Right now there's not a girl or boy in the whole world who'd
take his goods at any price. Yes, you've never seen such a wretched thing.
Why, he's limp as wet leather; there's nothing there at all. Just to show you,
what would you think of a man who could get out of bed with Circe without hav-
ing been satisfied?"

At this, Oenothea came and sat down between us on the bed. "Young man," she
said, wagging her head gravely, "I am the only person in the world who can
cure your disease. I mean that. All I require is that you agree to spend one
night here in bed with me, and if I don't make you stand up stiffer than a
bull's horn, my name's not Oenothea. Listen:

All visibles obey my words. All this flowered world,
at my command, must wilt, the saps run sluggish in the
　　　stems;
they spring again as I give leave. These barren cliffs,
at my bare word, must riven spill, each crag a Nile.
For me the sea falls still, the spanking waters hush;
the winds of winter gentle at the passing of my feet.
As I please, the rivers flow. Dragons and tigers,
like puppies, wag their tails and follow where I go,
tamely at my feet.
　　　　　　　　　　　　But these are trifles, bagatelles.
Why, by my spells, the lovely circled moon is drawn,
enchanted down, and flaring Phoebus, terrified,
drives his raging horses backwards down the sky
and makes a dusk of dawn.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Such are words: a power.
So once the ruddy fury of a charging bull was quenched
by a virgin's speech. Such was Circe 's magic once,
of all Ulysses' crew, she made a piggery of men.
So Protein is the image of his wish. And so, I too
have skills to spell the trees of Ida to the sea
and draw the riven to the peaks, uphill where they began."

[135] I shuddered with genuine tenor when I heard these fabulous promises and be-
gan to study the old woman with undisguised respect . . .

"Very well, young man," she said, "you must do exactly as I tell you." With that
she carefully washed her hands, and leaning over the bed, kissed me once, twice...



In the center of the altar she set a rickety table which she heaped with glowing
coals. She then reached down a winecup, badly cracked with age, patched it with
hot pitch and replaced the nail which had come away from the blackened wall when
she took the winecup down. Next, she put on a square apron, placed a large clay
pot on the hearth, and with a long fork took down from the cupboard an old sack
in which she kept her stock of beans--along with an old, battered head of pork,
badly nicked and sliced all over. She undid the bag, poured a pile of beans on
the table and ordered me to shell them as quickly as possible. I did as I was
told, slowly and laboriously separating each bean from the dirty pods with my
fingers. Scolding me for a slowpoke, she snatched up the beans and ripped the
husks away with her teeth, spitting them out on the floor like so many dried-up
flies.



I was amazed at the inventiveness of her poverty and the skill, the loving frugal
care displayed in every detail of that humble house:

No ivories of India, inworked with gold, shone here;
no trampled marbles underfoot mocked the giving earth
for what she gave. Instead, a simple willow bed,
a pallet of straw; pots and pans of common clay,
freshly turned by the potter's unpretentious skill.
And bowls of water, bright with beaded sweat. Baskets
of woven reed. A pitcher purpled with the god of wine.
The walls were wattled straw, spatter-daubed with clay;
long rows of rustic nails, and there beside the door
a broom of living rush hung down. Overhead,
suspended from the blackened beams in drying loops,
the simple harvest stores: sorb-apples, ripe,
wreaths of fragrant herbs and sprigs of savory
in raisin-clusters twined.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　In such a house as this,
near Athens once, I think, Theseus found his welcome,
found a hostess there, hospitable as heaven,
Hecale by name, the Muse of Battus' son--
Callimachus, who sang for generations yet to come
and made the name of Hecale with welcome, one.

[136] First she took down a tiny scrap of meat. Then, picking up the head of pork--
which couldn't have been a day younger than she was--she tried to reach it back up
to the hook with her fork. But suddenly the rotten stool on which she was standing
crumbled and collapsed, and she tumbled down into the fireplace, smashing the neck
of the pot as she fell. The water slopped out, quenching the fire which had just
begun to blaze, but not before she touched her elbow to a burning stick and, lash-
ing out in fright, spattered soot and ashes all over her face. When I recovered
from my own alarm, I helped her to her feet, though not, I confess, without a
laugh.

Anxious not to delay the sacrifice, she scurried off to a neighbor's house to
borrow some coals to relight the fire, while I went to the door to see her off.
But suddenly three sacred geese, who came there daily, I suppose, to demand
their noonday meal from the old woman, surrounded me, cackling furiously while
I stood there shaking. One of them ripped my tunic; the second untied the laces
of my sandals and tugged them off, while the third, obviously the ringleader of
the brutes, sank his jagged beak into my leg. It was no laughing matter. Snatch-
ing up the leg of a table, I began to batter the ugly, aggressive brute. Too
angry to be content with merely beating him away, however, I kept on hammering
at him until my honor was avenged and the goose lay dead at my feet:

So once, they say, the strength of Hercules prevailed, and the wild, Stymphalian
birds fled honking off to heaven. So too, on fetid wings, the filthy Harpies flew,
while Phineus sat below, disconsolate and sad, and saw his lovely dinner dunged.
So now as then, the frightened air with unaccustomed clamor shook, and the skies,
bewildered, throbbed with beating wings...



By now the two surviving geese had gobbled down the beans which had scattered
all over the floor; then, obviously demoralized by the loss of their leader, they
strutted away to the temple. Delighted with my taste of victory and my spoils, I
went back in, tossed the dead goose behind the bed and carefully douched the shal-
low cut on my leg with vinegar. But fearing that there might be a row over the
lost beans, I decided to make off while I still could. So I gathered up my things
and was just about to step out the door when I saw Oenothea on her way home
with a brazier of live coals. Quickly jumping back, I pulled off my cloak and stood
there nonchalantly in the doorway as though waiting for her to return.

Dumping the hot coals over a heap of dry reeds, she piled a few sticks of wood on
top and apologized for having taken so long. Her neighbor, she explained, had re-
fused to let her leave until she'd had the customary two or three friendly glass-
es of wine.

"Now then," she said, "what have you been doing while I was gone? And where
are the beans?"

Thinking that my rout of the geese deserved at the least a few words of praise,
I described the battle in detail and concluded by triumphantly producing the
dead goose, the sight of which I thought might console her for the loss of her
beans. But when she saw that dead bird, she let out such a squawk that for an in-
stant I thought the house had been invaded by a second flock of geese. Unnerved
by all this outcry and puzzled to know what was so terrible about what I'd done,
I asked her why she was angry and why she seemed to think that goose deserved
more pity than I did.

[137] Furiously slapping her hands together, she cried, "You monster, don't you
dare say another word! Do you know the sacrilege you've committed? You've mur-
dered Priapus' pet goose, the favorite of all the married women. And don't sup-
pose it's not a serious matter. If the magistrates find out, it's up on the cross
you go. This house was innocent of any bloodshed until you defiled it. Now,
thanks to you, any of my enemies who wants has the power to expel me from
my priesthood."



"Don't make such a fuss." I said. "I'll give you an ostrich in place of the goose."



Then, to my amazement, she sat down on the bed and sobbed over that dead goose
until Proselenos arrived with the things she had bought for the sacrifice. Seeing
the dead bird, she asked Oenothea why she was crying and, being told, promptly
burst into tears herself, exclaiming over me as though I'd just murdered my fa-
ther and not some damn goose. Finally I got disgusted. "Look here," I broke in,
"why don't you let me pay you for the goose? After all, if I'd insulted you or
killed a man, it might be a different matter. But a goose! Here, take these two
pieces of gold. With them you can buy yourself some geese, or gods too, for that
matter."

At the sight of money, Oenothea melted. "Forgive me, young man," she said, "I
was only anxious on your account. You mustn't take it as ill will; it was a
proof of my affection for you. But don't you worry your head about it any more;
we'll see to it that no one ever finds out. You just pray to the gods and ask
them to pardon your sacrilege.'

Rich, you journey well. Your money slicks the sea.
Your winds are fair; you sail at will and do not drown
　　　　　　　--though loaded down with money.

And rich, you marry well. Sleep with Danae. Why not?
(Just whisper in her father's ear what he told her
when Jupiter as a rain of gold descended:
　　　　　　　--"Dear, you've married money.")

Poet or lawyer, either be: the world's applause
is yours. No matter what you say, or how
　　　　　　　--nothing talks like money.

Or be a judge. Gavel down your "Guilty" or "Acquitted,"
secure as Servius. The world's not judge of much
　　　　　　　--except your Honor's money.

Examples enough.
　　　　　　　The moral is: money money money.
It pays to pray:
　　　　　　　Jupiter is money in the bank.



Setting a jar of wine beneath my hands, she made me extend my fingers and care-
fully rubbed them down with a purgative of leeks and parsley. Then, mumbling a
prayer, she threw a handful of filberts into the wine, and according to whether
the nuts fell to the bottom or floated, drew her conclusions. I noticed, however,
that the empty nuts, being filled with air, floated, while the good nuts with
meat in their kernels sank to the bottom...



She slit the belly of the goose and extracted a fine plump liver with which she
proceeded to tell me my future. Finally, to remove any remaining traces of sac-
rilege, she chopped the goose into small pieces which she skewered and roasted
over the fire. So, instead of the terrible death to which she had condemned me
only a few minutes earlier, I was served a handsome meal. Between courses of
roast goose, we dumped down glass after glass of good neat wine...



[138] Next, Ocnothea brought out a leather phallus which she rubbed with a mix-
ture of oil, pepper and ground nettleseed and then slowly inserted in my rectum.
Pitilessly sprinkling my thighs with the same mixture, the old hag...



Mixing the juice of watercress with god knows what exotic herb, she spattered
my penis with the stuff and brushed the lower part of my abdomen with a branch
of green nettles...

Despite the fact that the two old women were completely drunk and almost fran-
tic with desire, they tried to take the same road, chasing me down the street
and shrieking, 'Thief! Thief! Stop him!" I finally escaped, but I had run so
furiously that my poor feet were badly cut and bleeding all over...





XX


INTERLUDE WITH CHRYSIS



"Chrysis, who once despised you as nothing but a slave, has now decided to
share your present lot even at the cost of her life."



"What loveliness did Leda have, or Ariadne, that they could be compared to
Circe? The beauty of Helen and Venus is nothing to hers. Why, had she appear-
ed when Paris wasjudging the three goddesses, had he seen her whole enchant-
ing beauty, he would have thrown Helen over and the goddesses into the bar-
gain. 0 gods, to kiss her, to hold that heavenly beauty in my arms once
more! For then my manhood might revive, that part of me that now lies drug-
ged and dead with some enchanter's spell would rise once more. Then no humi-
liations would hold me back. Then beat me, thrash me, O my lovely: I would
not feel it. Throw me out the door: you play, you tease. Only let me return
to your good graces once again..."



[139] I wore out the bed with my restless writhing, thrashing about as
though I held in my arms the living ghost of my lost love...



Not me alone does fate, implacable, pursue.
On others too the grinding rage of heaven falls.
So Hercules was hounded from his home to bear in pain
the angry goddess' grudge. So Pelias once knew
the spite of Juno; Laomedon, unknowing, fought
his fate. Two gods oppressed the beggared Telephus,
while great Ulysses learned of Neptune's sea a life,
its bitterness, and rage.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 So now, upon me too,
Priapus' restless hatred falls, hounding me on,
over land and sea, on and on, relentlessly on.



I asked Giton whether anyone had come to inquire after me. "No one today,"
he told me, "but yesterday a rather pretty woman came and chatted until I
began to get bored by her forced conversation. Then she warned me that you
had committed a great crime and that you'd be tortured like a slave so long
as the person you've injured persists in his complaint."



I was still grumbling when Chrysis burst in, threw her arms around me pas-
sionately, and cried: "O passion of my life, my dream, my only joy! Only
death itself will ever quench the flame of my desire."



One of the new slaves suddenly ran up and told me that Eumolpus was furi-
ous because I had taken two days off from my work without leave. So I'd
better prepare a good excuse. But as things looked now, it wasn't likely
that the master's fury would be satisfied by anything less than a flogg-
ing...




XXI


PHILOMELA



[140] One of our inheritance-hunters was an extremely respectable matron
by the name of Philomela, a lady whose ample charms in younger days had
enabled her to come into several large legacies. Now old and faded, howe-
ver, she made it her practice to offer her daughter and son as wards to
childless old men with money, and in this way managed to keep her talents
green and flourishing into the second generation. So it was not long be-
fore she came to pay a visit to Eumolpus, and after warmly praising his
uprightness of life, his largesse and conspicuous humanity, commended her
children to his care. He was, she declared, the only man on earth who
could be depended upon to give her darlings daily instruction in firm
moral principles. In short, she proposed to throw these children entirely
on Eumolpus' mercy: his guidance and instruction was the only portion she
could give them before she died. True to her word, she promptly left her
very pretty daughter and her adolescent son there in the bedroom with Eu-
molpus and hurried off to the temple on the pretext of thanking heaven
for this fulfillment of her dearest hopes.

Eumolpus--whose frustrations had reached such a pitch that he was on the
point of making me his Ganymede--lost no time and immediately invited the
girl to a lesson in ritual buttock-thumping. But he had told everyone that
he was gouty and cursed with a bad liver, and unless he maintained this
fiction, he ran the risk of giving the whole show away. So, in order to
sustain his story, he ordered the girl to sit down on his lap and test for
herself at close quarters the full extent of that "uprightness and largesse
and conspicuous humanity" her mother had just commended so warmly. Then
he told Corax to slip under the bed, plant his hands firmly on the floor,
and stroke the cadence for him by heaving with his buttocks. Corax carried
out his orders to perfection: a slow, smooth stroke, every thrust so timed
that it coincided exactly with the girl's expert twisting and writhing.
Then, as the lesson neared its conclusion, Eumolpus shrieked to Corax to
quicken the tempo. Corax promptly obeyed, humping away like mad, while Eu-
molpus swung there in mid-air, bouncing and swaying back and forth between
the servant and the girl, for all the world like a human seesaw. The first
lesson over, Eumolpus immediately began the second, much to our own amuse-
ment and also his own.

Meanwhile, fearing that my long inactivity had left me out of shape, I ap-
proached the brother who was eagerly following his sisters gymnastics
through a chink in the door. Sophisticated boy that he was, he made no ob-
jection, but once again the god's hostility frustrated my rising hopes...





XXII


RESTORED



"There are other gods still more powerful," I explained, "and it is they who
have made me a man once more. Mercury himself, the god who guides our
unborn souls to the light and leads the dead to hell, has taken pity on me
and given me back that power which an angry hand once cut away. Look at
me and tell me whether Protesilaus or any of those ancient heroes was ever
more blessed by heaven than I am now." With that, I lifted my tunic and
displayed myself in my erected glory. Gaping with astonishment and awe, ut-
terly incapable of believing his eyes, he reached out his shaking hands
and caressed that huge pledge of heaven's favor...





XXIII


MATTERS AT CROTON COME TO A HEAD



"Perhaps so," Eumolpus admitted. "But Socrates, whom gods and men alike de-
clared to be the wisest man in the world, used to boast that he never look-
ed into a shop and completely avoided all crowds. And it's my belief that
our best policy now would be to follow his wise example."

"Very true," I replied. "And certainly no one more richly deserves bad luck
than those who envy others their good luck. But how do you think con men
and swindlers would ever succeed unless they first got their hooks into a
crowd by pointedly displaying fat purses jingling with gold? To catch a fish,
you need a baited hook, and you'll never catch a man unless you're prepared
to give him at least a nibble of hope."



[141] "The ship from Africa with that cargo of slaves and money which you
keep promising never arrives. And the legacy-hunters are beginning to lose
patience and their generosity is wearing thin. No, unless I'm badly mistak-
en, Lady Luck is preparing to leave us in the lurch..."




XXIV



EUMOLPUS MAKES HIS WILL




"With the exception of my freedmen," Eumolpus said, "all those who come into
money by the terms of my will shall inherit only upon satisfaction of the fol-
lowing condition: they must slice up my body into little pieces and swallow
them down in the presence of the entire city..."



"We know that in certain countries there exist laws which compel a dead man's
relatives to eat his body. So rigorously, in fact, are these laws enforced
that men who die of sickness or disease frequently find themselves reproached
by their relatives for having made their meat inedible. So I warn my friends
not to disregard my last wishes, but to eat my body as heartily as they damned
my soul."



Eumolpus' reputation for enormous wealth had so completely blinded the poor
fools' minds that...



Gorgias stood ready to manage the funeral...



"I am not in the least disturbed by any fear that your stomachs may turn. They
will obey you quite without qualms so long as you promise them years of bless-
ings in exchange for one brief hour of nausea. Just close your eyes and imagine
that, instead of human flesh, you're munching a million. If that isn't enough,
we'll concoct some gravy that will take the taste away. As you know, no meat
is really very tasty anyway; it all has to be sauced and seasoned with great
care before the reluctant stomach will keep it down. And if it's precedents
you want, there are hundreds of them. The people of Saguntum, for instance,
when Hannibal besieged them, took to eating human flesh, and did so, moreover,
without the slightest hope of getting an inheritance out of it. And when a ter-
rible famine struck Petelia, the people all became cannibals, and the only
thing they gained from their diet was that they weren't hungry any more. And
when Scipio captured Numantia, the Romans found a number of mothers cuddling
the half-eaten bodies of their children in their laps..."