The Satyricon Part 7

CHAPTER THE FIFTIETH.

The whole household burst into unanimous applause at this; "Hurrah for Gaius," they shouted. As for the cook, he was given a drink and a silver crown and a cup on a salver of Corinthian bronze. Seeing that Agamemnon was eyeing the platter closely, Trimalchio remarked, "I'm the only one that can show the real Corinthian!" I thought that, in his usual purse-proud manner, he was going to boast that his bronzes were all imported from Corinth, but he did even better by saying, "Wouldn't you like to know how it is that I'm the only one that can show the real Corinthian? Well, it's because the bronze worker I patronize is named Corinthus, and what's Corinthian unless it's what a Corinthus makes? And, so you won't think I'm a blockhead, I'm going to show you that I'm well acquainted with how Corinthian first came into the world. When Troy was taken, Hannibal, who was a very foxy fellow and a great rascal into the bargain, piled all the gold and silver and bronze statues in one pile and set 'em afire, melting these different metals into one: then the metal workers took their pick and made bowls and dessert dishes and statuettes as well. That's how Corinthian was born; neither one nor the other, but an amalgam of all. But I prefer gla.s.s, if you don't mind my saying so; it don't stink, and if it didn't break, I'd rather have it than gold, but it's cheap and common now."

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIRST.

"But there was an artisan, once upon a time, who made a gla.s.s vial that couldn't be broken. On that account he was admitted to Caesar with his gift; then he dashed it upon the floor, when Caesar handed it back to him. The Emperor was greatly startled, but the artisan picked the vial up off the pavement, and it was dented, just like a bra.s.s bowl would have been! He took a little hammer out of his tunic and beat out the dent without any trouble. When he had done that, he thought he would soon be in Jupiter's heaven, and more especially when Caesar said to him, 'Is there anyone else who knows how to make this malleable gla.s.s? Think now!' And when he denied that anyone else knew the secret, Caesar ordered his head chopped off, because if this should get out, we would think no more of gold than we would of dirt."

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SECOND.

"And when it comes to silver, I'm a connoisseur; I have goblets as big as wine-jars, a hundred of 'em more or less, with engraving that shows how Ca.s.sandra killed her sons, and the dead boys are lying so naturally that you'd think 'em alive. I own a thousand bowls which Mummius left to my patron, where Daedalus is shown shutting Niobe up in the Trojan horse, and I also have cups engraved with the gladiatorial contests of Hermeros and Petraites: they're all heavy, too. I wouldn't sell my taste in these matters for any money!" A slave dropped a cup while he was running on in this fashion. Glaring at him, Trimalchio said, "Go hang yourself, since you're so careless." The boy's lip quivered and he immediately commenced to beg for mercy. "Why do you pray to me?" Trimalchio demanded, at this: "I don't intend to be harsh with you, I'm only warning you against being so awkward." Finally, however, we got him to give the boy a pardon and no sooner had this been done than the slave started running around the room crying, "Out with the water and in with the wine!" We all paid tribute to this joke, but Agamemnon in particular, for he well knew what strings to pull in order to secure another invitation to dinner. Tickled by our flattery, and mellowed by the wine, Trimalchio was just about drunk. "Why hasn't one of you asked my Fortunata to dance?" he demanded, "There's no one can do a better cancan, believe me," and he himself raised his arms above his head and favored us with an impersonation of Syrus the actor; the whole household chanting: Oh bravo Oh bravissimo in chorus, and he would have danced out into the middle of the room before us all, had not Fortunata whispered in his ear, telling him, I suppose, that such low buffoonery was not in keeping with his dignity. But nothing could be so changeable as his humor, for one minute he stood in awe of Fortunata, but his natural propensities would break out the next.

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-THIRD.

But his pa.s.sion for dancing was interrupted at this stage by a stenographer who read aloud, as if he were reading the public records, "On the seventh of the Kalends of July, on Trimalchio's estates near c.u.mae, were born thirty boys and forty girls: five hundred pecks of wheat were taken from the threshing floors and stored in the granaries: five hundred oxen were put to yoke: the slave Mithridates was crucified on the same date for cursing the genius of our master, Gaius: on said date ten million sesterces were returned to the vaults as no sound investment could be found: on said date, a fire broke out in the gardens at Pompeii, said fire originating in the house of Nasta, the bailiff." "What's that?" demanded Trimalchio. "When were the gardens at Pompeii bought for me?" "Why, last year," answered the stenographer, "for that reason the item has not appeared in the accounts." Trimalchio flew into a rage at this. "If I'm not told within six months of any real estate that's bought for me," he shouted, "I forbid it's being carried to my account at all!" Next, the edicts of his aediles were read aloud, and the wills of some of his foresters in which Trimalchio was disinherited by a codicil, then the names of his bailiffs, and that of a freedwoman who had been repudiated by a night watchman, after she had been caught in bed with a bath attendant, that of a porter banished to Baioe, a steward who was standing trial, and lastly the report of a decision rendered in the matter of a lawsuit, between some valets. When this was over with, some rope dancers came in and a very boresome fool stood holding a ladder, ordering his boy to dance from rung to rung, and finally at the top, all this to the music of popular airs; then the boy was compelled to jump through blazing hoops while grasping a huge wine jar with his teeth. Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks, remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure, rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing but nonsense. "I bought a company of comedians," he went on, "but I preferred for them to put on Atellane farces, and I ordered my flute-player to play Latin airs only."

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FOURTH.

While our n.o.ble Gaius was still talking away, the boy slipped and fell, alighting upon Trimalchio's arm. The whole household cried out, as did also the guests, not that they bore such a coa.r.s.e fellow any good will, as they would gladly have seen his neck broken, but because such an unlucky ending to the dinner might make it necessary for them to go into mourning over a total stranger. As for Trimalchio, he groaned heavily and bent over his arm as though it had been injured: doctors flocked around him, and Fortunata was among the very first, her hair was streaming and she held a cup in her hand and screamed out her grief and unhappiness. As for the boy who had fallen, he was crawling at our feet, imploring pardon. I was uneasy for fear his prayers would lead up to some ridiculous theatrical climax, for I had not yet been able to forget that cook who had forgotten to bowel that hog, and so, for this reason, I began to scan the whole dining-room very closely, to see if an automaton would come out through the wall; and all the more so as a slave was beaten for having bound up his master's bruised arm in white wool instead of purple. Nor was my suspicion unjustified, for in place of punishment, Trimalchio ordered that the boy be freed, so that no one could say that so exalted a personage had been injured by a slave.

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIFTH.

We applauded his action and engaged in a discussion upon the instability of human affairs, which many took sides. "A good reason," declared Trimalchio, "why such an occasion shouldn't slip by without an epigram." He called for his tablets at once, and after racking his brains for a little while, he got off the following:

The unexpected will turn up; Our whole lives Fortune bungles up.

Falernian, boy, hand round the cup.

This epigram led up to a discussion of the poets, and for a long time, the greatest praise was bestowed upon Mopsus the Thracian, until Trimalchio broke in with: "Professor, I wish you'd tell me how you'd compare Cicero and Publilius. I'm of the opinion that the first was the more eloquent, but that the last moralizes more beautifully, for what can excel these lines?

Insatiable luxury crumbles the walls of war; To satiate gluttony, peac.o.c.ks in coops are brought Arrayed in gold plumage like Babylon tapestry rich.

Numidian guinea-fowls, capons, all perish for thee: And even the wandering stork, welcome guest that he is, The emblem of sacred maternity, slender of leg And gloctoring exile from winter, herald of spring, Still, finds his last nest in the--cauldron of gluttony base.

India surrenders her pearls; and what mean they to thee?

That thy wife decked with sea-spoils adorning her breast and her head On the couch of a stranger lies lifting adulterous legs?

The emerald green, the gla.s.s bauble, what mean they to thee?

Or the fire of the ruby? Except that pure chast.i.ty shine From the depth of the jewels: in garments of woven wind clad Our brides might as well take their stand, their game naked to stalk, As seek it in gossamer tissue transparent as air."

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SIXTH.

"What should we say was the hardest calling, after literature?" he asked. "That of the doctor or that of the money-changer, I would say: the doctor, because he has to know what poor devils have got in their insides, and when the fever's due: but I hate them like the devil, for my part, because they're always ordering me on a diet of duck soup: and the money-changer's, because he's got to be able to see the silver through the copper plating. When we come to the dumb beasts, the oxen and sheep are the hardest worked, the oxen, thanks to whose labor we have bread to chew on, the sheep, because their wool tricks us out so fine. It's the greatest outrage under the sun for people to eat mutton and then wear a tunic. Then there's the bee: in my opinion, they're divine insects because they puke honey, though there are folks that claim that they bring it from Jupiter, and that's the reason they sting, too, for wherever you find a sweet, you'll find a bitter too." He was just putting the philosophers out of business when lottery tickets were pa.s.sed around in a cup. A slave boy a.s.signed to that duty read aloud the names of the souvenirs: "Silver s--ham," a ham was brought in with some silver vinegar cruets on top of it; "cervical"--something soft for the neck--a piece of the cervix--neck--of a sheep was brought in; "serisapia"--after wit--"and contumelia"--insult--we were given must wafers and an apple-melon--and a phallus--contus--; "porri"--leeks--"and persica," he picked up a whip and a knife; "pa.s.seres"--sparrows" and a fly--trap," the answer was raisins--uva pa.s.sa--and Attic honey; "cenatoria"--a dinner toga--"and forensia"--business dress--he handed out a piece of meat--suggestive of dinner--and a note-book--suggestive of business--; "ca.n.a.le"--chased by a dog--"and pedale"--pertaining to the foot--, a hare and a slipper were brought out; "lamphrey"--murena--"and a letter," he held up a mouse--mus--and a frog--rana--tied together, and a bundle of beet--beta--the Greek letter beta--. We laughed long and loud, there were a thousand of these jokes, more or less, which have now escaped my memory.

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SEVENTH.

But Ascyltos threw off all restraint and ridiculed everything; throwing up his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. At last, one of Trimalchio's fellow-freedmen, the one who had the place next to me, flew into a rage, "What's the joke, sheep's-head," he bawled, "Don't our host's swell entertainment suit you? You're richer than he is, I suppose, and used to dining better! As I hope the guardian spirit of this house will be on my side, I'd have stopped his bleating long ago if I'd been sitting next to him. He's a peach, he is, laughing at others; some vagabond or other from who-knows-where, some night-pad who's not worth his own p.i.s.s: just let me p.i.s.s a ring around him and he wouldn't know where to run to! I ain't easy riled, no, by Hercules, I ain't, but worms breed in tender flesh. Look at him laugh! What the h.e.l.l's he got to laugh at? Is his family so d.a.m.ned fine-haired? So you're a Roman knight! Well, I'm a king's son! How's it come that you've been a slave, you'll ask because I put myself into service because I'd rather be a Roman citizen than a tax-paying provincial. And now I hope that my life will be such that no one can jeer at me. I'm a man among men! I take my stroll bareheaded and owe no man a copper cent. I never had a summons in my life and no one ever said to me, in the forum, pay me what you owe me. I've bought a few acres and saved up a few dollars and I feed twenty bellies and a dog. I ransomed my bedfellow so no one could wipe his hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won't need to blush in my grave after I'm dead. But you're so busy that you can't look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you can't see the tick on yourself. You're the only one that thinks we're so funny; look at your professor, he's older than you are, and we're good enough for him, but you're only a brat with the milk still in your nose and all you can prattle is 'ma' or 'mu,' you're only a clay pot, a piece of leather soaked in water, softer and slipperier, but none the better for that. You've got more coin than we have, have you? Then eat two breakfasts and two dinners a day. I'd rather have my reputation than riches, for my part, and before I make an end of this--who ever dunned me twice? In all the forty years I was in service, no one could tell whether I was free or a slave. I was only a long-haired boy when I came to this colony and the town house was not built then. I did my best to please my master and he was a digniferous and majestical gentleman whose nail-parings were worth more than your whole carca.s.s. I had enemies in his house, too, who would have been glad to trip me up, but I swam the flood, thanks to his kindness. Those are the things that try your mettle, for it's as easy to be born a gentleman as to say, 'Come here.' Well, what are you gaping at now, like a billy-goat in a vetch-field?"