Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  [XXII] Ascyltos was so worn out with all he had gone through he could not keep his eyes open a moment longer, and the waiting-maid, whom he had scorned and slighted, now proceeded to daub his face all over with streaks of soot, and bepaint his lips and shoulders as he lay unconscious.

  I too, tired with the persecutions I had endured, was just enjoying forty winks, as they say, while all the household, within doors and without, had copied my example. Some lay sprawling about the diners’ feet, others propped against the walls, while others snored head to head right on the threshold. The oil in the lamps had burned low, and they shed a feeble, dying light, when two Syrian slaves came into the banquet-room to crib a flagon of wine.

  Whilst they were greedily fighting for it and scuffling amongst the silver, it parted and broke in two. At the same moment the table with the silver plate collapsed, and a goblet falling from perhaps a greater height than the rest, struck the waiting-maid who was lying exhausted on a couch underneath and cut her head open. She screamed out at the blow, at once discovering the thieves and awakening some of the drunkards. The Syrians, thus caught in the act, threw themselves with one accord onto a couch, and started snoring as if they had been asleep ever so long.

  By this time the chief butler had wakened up and put fresh oil into the expiring lamps, while the other slaves after rubbing their eyes a bit, had resumed their posts, and presently a cymbal-player came in and roused us all up with a clash of her instruments. [XXIII] So the banquet was resumed, and Quartilla challenged us to start a fresh carouse, the tinkle of cymbals still further stimulating her reckless gaiety.

  The next to appear is a catamite, the silliest of mankind and quite worthy of the house, who beat his hands together, gave a groan, and then spouted the following delightful effusion:

  “Who hath a pathic lust,

  With Delian vice accurst;

  Who loves the pliant thigh,

  Quick hand and wanton sigh;

  Come hither, come hither, come hither,

  Here shall he see

  Gross beasts as he,

  Lechers of every feather!”

  Then, his poetry exhausted, he spat a most stinking kiss in my face; before long he mounted on the couch where I lay and exposed me by force in spite of my resistance. He labored hard and long to bring up my member, but in vain. Streams of gummy paint and sweat poured from his heated brow, and such a lot of chalk filled the wrinkles of his cheeks, you might have thought his face was an old dilapidated wall with the plaster crumbling away in the rain.

  [XXIV] I could no longer restrain my tears, but driven to the last extremity of disgust, “I ask you, lady,” I cried, “is this the ‘night-cap’ (ambasicoetas) you promised me?” At this she clapped her hands daintily, exclaiming, “Oh you clever boy! what a pretty wit you have! Of course you didn’t know ‘night-cap’ is another name for a catamite?” Then, that my comrade might not miss his share too, I asked her, “Now, on your conscience, is Ascyltos to be the only guest in the room to keep holiday!”

  “So?” she cried, “why! let Ascyltos have his ‘night-cap’ too!” In obedience to her order, the catamite now changed his mount, and transferring his attentions to my friend, set to grinding him under his buttocks and smothering him with lecherous kisses.

  All this while Giton had been standing by, laughing as if his sides would split. Now Quartilla, catching sight of him, asked with eager curiosity, whose lad he was. When I told her he was my little favorite, “Why hasn’t he kissed me then?” she cried, and calling him to her glued her lips to his. Next minute she slipped her hand under his clothes, and pulling out his unpractised tool, she observed, “This will be a very pretty whet tomorrow to our naughty appetite. For today,— ‘After such a dainty dish, I will taste no common fish!’”

  [XXV] Just as she was saying this, Psyche approached her mistress laughingly and whispered something in her ear. “Yes! yes!” exclaimed Quartilla, “a capital idea! why should not our little Pannychis lose her maidenhood! ’tis an excellent opportunity, indeed.” Immediately they brought in a pretty enough little girl, and who did not appear to be more than seven years old the same child who had accompanied Quartilla on her first visit to our room at the inn. So amid general applause and indeed at the special request of the company, they began the bridal preparations. I was horrified, and declared that, while on the one hand Giton, who was a very modest boy, was quite unequal to such naughtiness, on the other Pannychis was far too young to endure the treatment a woman must expect. “Why!” said Quartilla, “is the girl any younger than I was when I first submitted to a man? May Juno, my patroness, desert me, if I can mind the time when I was a maid. As a child I was naughty with little boys of my own age, and presently as the years rolled by, with bigger lads, till I reached my present time of life. Hence I suppose the proverb that says: ‘Who carried the calf, may well carry the bull.’”

  Fearing my favorite might get into greater troubles if I were not there, I got up to assist at the wedding ceremony.

  [XXVI] By this time Psyche had thrown the bridal veil over the child’s head; our pathic friend was marching in front with a torch; a long procession of drunken women followed, clapping their hands, having previously decked the marriage bed with a splendid coverlet. Then Quartilla, fired by the wanton pleasantry, likewise rose from table, and seizing Giton drew him into the chamber. The lad was not at all loath to go, and even the child manifested very little fear or reluctance at the name of matrimony.

  In due course when they were in bed and the door shut, we sat down on the threshold of the nuptial chamber, and first of all Quartilla applied an inquisitive eye to a crack in the door contrived for some such naughty purpose, and watched their childish dalliance with lecherous intentness. She drew me gently to her side to enjoy the same spectacle, and our faces being close together as we looked, she would, at every interval in the performance, twist her lips sideways to meet mine, and kept continually pecking at me with a sort of furtive kisses.

  Suddenly in the midst of these proceedings a prodigious thumping made itself heard at the entrance door, and whilst everybody was wondering what the unexpected interruption might mean, we saw a soldier come in, one of the nightwatch, with a drawn sword in his hand and surrounded by a crowd of young men. The fellow glared about him with bloodshot eyes and braggadocio airs; presently spying Quartilla, he cried, “What have we here, abandoned woman? How dare you make game of me with your falsehoods and cheat me out of the night you promised me? But you shan’t go unpunished, I can tell you; you and your lover shall find out you have a man to deal with.”

  [XXVII] Obeying the soldier’s orders, his comrades now bind Quartilla and myself together, mouth to mouth, bosom to bosom, and thigh to thigh, in the midst of shouts of laughter. Then the catamite, still by the soldier’s order, began to beslaver me horribly all over with the odious kisses of his stinking lips — a treatment I had no means either of escaping from or avoiding. Before long he debauched me, and worked his full will upon my body. Meantime, the satyrion I had drunk a while before, stirring every fiber to lasciviousness, I began to perform on Quartilla, while she, fired with a like wantonness, showed no repugnance to the game. The young soldiers burst into fits of laughter at the ludicrous performance; for, while myself mounted by a vile catamite, involuntarily and almost without knowing what I was at, I kept moving to him just as fast and furiously as Quartilla was wriggling under me.

  At this moment Pannychis, unaccustomed at her age to love’s ardors, raised a sudden cry of pain and consternation, which the soldiers heard. The poor child was in the act of being ravished, and the triumphant Giton had won a not bloodless victory. Roused by the sight, the man rushed at them, and clipped now Pannychis, now Giton, and now both of them together, in his sturdy arms. The girl burst into tears and besought him to take pity on her tender years; but her prayers were entirely unavailing, the soldier being only the more excited by her childish charms. All Pannychis could do was to throw a veil over her face and resign hers
elf to endure whatever fate might bring her.

  But at this crisis who should come to the unfortunate child’s rescue, as if she had dropped from the sky, but the very same old woman who had beguiled me the day I was inquiring my road home? She burst into the house with loud cries, declaring that a band of robbers was prowling about the neighborhood while peaceful citizens were crying in vain for help, the guard being asleep or busy with their victuals, at any rate nowhere to be found. The soldier, much disturbed at what she said, fled precipitately from the house and his companions following his example, freed Pannychis from the impending danger which had threatened her and relieved us all of our terror.

  So weary was I by this time of Quartilla’s lecherousness that I began to revolve means of escape. I opened my mind to Ascyltos, who was only too pleased to hear of my purpose, longing to be rid of Psyche’s importunities.

  The whole thing would have been plain enough sailing had not Giton been locked up in the chamber; for we wished to take him with us and save him from the viciousness of these strumpets. We were anxiously debating the point when Pannychis fell out of bed, and her weight dragged Giton after her. He was unhurt, but the child, having given her head a slight knock, raised such an outcry that Quartilla in a fright rushed headlong into the room, and so gave us an opportunity to escape.

  Taking advantage of this opening without an instant’s delay, we fly with all speed to our inn and throwing ourselves into bed, spent the rest of the night in security.

  Going abroad next day, we came upon two of Quartilla’s fellows who had kidnapped us to her palace. No sooner did Ascyltos clap eyes on the rascals than he vigorously attacked one of them, and after beating and seriously wounding him, came to my help against the other. But this last bore himself so stoutly that he managed to wound us both, though only slightly, escaping himself without a scratch.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The third day had now arrived, the date appointed for the free banquet at Trimalchio’s; but with so many wounds as we had, we deemed it better policy to fly than to remain where we were. So we made the best of our way to our inn, and our hurts being only skin-deep after all, we lay in bed and dressed them with wine and oil.

  Still one of the rascals was lying on the ground disabled, and we were afraid we might yet be discovered. Whilst we were still debating sadly with ourselves how we might best escape the storm, a slave of Agamemnon’s broke into our trembling conclave, crying, “What! don’t you recollect whose entertainment it is this day? — Trimalchio’s, a most elegant personage; he has a time-piece in his dining-room and a trumpeter specially provided for the purpose keeps him constantly informed how much of his lifetime is gone.” So, forgetting all our troubles, we proceed to make a careful toilette, and bid Giton, who had always hitherto been very ready to act as servant, to attend us at the bath.

  [XXVII] Meantime in our gala dresses, we began to stroll about, or rather to amuse ourselves by approaching the different groups of ball-players. Amongst these we all of a sudden catch sight of a bald-headed old man in a russet tunic, playing ball amid a troupe of long-haired boys. It was not however so much the boys, though these were well worth looking at, that drew us to the spot, as the master himself, who wore sandals and was playing with green balls. He never stooped for a ball that had once touched ground, but an attendant stood by with a sackful, and supplied the players as they required them. We noticed other novelties too. For two eunuchs were stationed at opposite points of the circle, one holding a silver chamber-pot, while the other counted the balls, not those that were in play and flying from hand to hand, but such as fell on the floor.

  We were still admiring these refinements of elegance when Menelaus runs up, saying, “See! that’s the gentleman you are to dine with; why! this is really nothing else than a prelude to the entertainment.” He had not finished speaking when Trimalchio snapped his fingers, and at the signal the eunuch held out the chamber-pot for him, without his ever stopping play. After easing his bladder, he called for water, and having dipped his hands momentarily in the bowl, dried them on one of the lads’ hair.

  [XXVIII] There was no time to notice every detail; so we entered the bath, and after stewing in the sweating-room, passed instantly into the cold chamber. Trimalchio, after being drenched with unguent, was being rubbed down, not however with ordinary towels but with pieces of blanketing of the softest and finest wool. Meanwhile three bagnio doctors were swilling Falernian under his eyes; and seeing how the fellows were brawling over their liquor and spilling most of it, Trimalchio declared it was a libation they were making in his particular honor.

  Presently muffled in a wrap-rascal of scarlet frieze, he was placed in a litter, preceded by four running-footmen in tinseled liveries, and a wheeled chair, in which his favorite rode, a little old young man, sore-eyed and uglier even than his master. As the latter was borne along, a musician took up his place at this head with a pair of miniature flutes, and played softly to him, as if he were whispering secrets in his ear. Full of wonder we follow the procession and arrive at the same moment as Agamemnon at the outer door, on one of the pillars of which was suspended a tablet bearing the words:

  ANY SLAVE

  GOING ABROAD WITHOUT THE MASTER’S

  PERMISSION

  SHALL RECEIVE ONE HUNDRED LASHES

  Just within the vestibule stood the doorkeeper, dressed in green with a cherry-colored sash, busy picking peas in a silver dish. Over the threshold hung a gold cage with a black and white magpie in it, which greeted visitors on their entrance.

  [XXIX] But as I was staring open-eyed at all these fine sights, I came near tumbling backwards and breaking my legs. For to the left hand as you entered, and not far from the porter’s lodge, a huge chained dog was depicted on the wall, and written above in capital letters: ‘WARE DOG! ‘WARE DOG! My companions made merry at my expense; but soon regaining confidence, I fell to examining the other paintings on the walls. One of these represented a slave-market, the men standing up with labels round their necks, while in another Trimalchio himself, wearing long hair, holding a caduceus in his hand and led by Minerva, was entering Rome. Further on, the ingenious painter had shown him learning accounts, and presently made steward of the estate, each incident being made clear by explanatory inscriptions. Lastly, at the extreme end of the portico, Mercury was lifting the hero by the chin and placing him on the highest seat of a tribunal. Fortune stood by with her cornucopia, and the three Fates, spinning his destiny with a golden thread.

  I noticed likewise in the portico a gang of running-footmen exercising under a trainer. Moreover I saw in a corner a vast armory; and in a shrine inside were ranged Lares of silver, and a marble statue of Venus, and a golden casket of ample dimensions, in which they said the great man’s first beard was preserved. I now asked the hall-keeper what were the subjects of the frescoes in the atrium itself? “The Iliad and Odyssey,” he replied, “and on your left the combat of gladiators given under Laenas.”

  [XXX] We had no opportunity of examining the numerous paintings more minutely, having by this time reached the banquet-hall, at the outer door of which the house-steward sat receiving accounts. But the thing that surprised me most was to notice on the doorposts of the apartment fasces and axes fixed up, the lower part terminating in an ornament resembling the bronze beak of a ship, on which was inscribed:

  TO GAIUS POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO

  AUGUSTAL SEVIR,

  CINNAMUS HIS TREASURER

  Underneath this inscription hung a lamp with two lights, depending from the vaulting. Two other tablets were attached to the doorposts. One, if my memory serves me, bore the following inscription:

  ON DECEMBER THIRTIETH AND

  THIRTY-FIRST

  OUR MASTER GAIUS DINES ABROAD

  The other showed the phases of the moon and the seven planets, while lucky and unlucky days were marked by distinctive studs.

  When, sated with all these fine sights, we were just making for the entrance of the banquet-hall, one of the s
laves, stationed there for the purpose, called out, “Right foot first!” Not unnaturally there was a moment’s hesitation, for fear one of us should break the rule. But this was not all; for just as we stepped out in line right leg foremost, another slave, stripped of his outer garments, threw himself before our feet, beseeching us to save him from punishment. Not indeed that his fault was a very serious one; in point of fact the Intendant’s clothes had been stolen when in his charge at the bath, — a matter of ten sesterces or so at the outside. So facing about, still right foot in front, we approached the Intendant, who was counting gold in the hall, and asked him to forgive the poor man. He looked up haughtily and said, “It’s not so much the loss that annoys me as the rascal’s carelessness. He has lost my dinner robes, which a client gave me on my birthday, — genuine Tyrian purple, I assure you, though only once dipped. But there! I will pardon the delinquent at your request.”

  [XXXI] Deeply grateful for so signal a favor, we now returned to the banquet-hall, where we were met by the same slave for whom we had interceded, who to our astonishment overwhelmed us with a perfect storm of kisses, thanking us again and again for our humanity. “Indeed,” he cried, “you shall presently know who it is you have obliged; the master’s wine is the cup-bearer’s thank-offering.”

  Well! at last we take our places, Alexandrian slave-boys pouring snow water over our hands, and others succeeding them to wash our feet and cleanse our toe-nails with extreme dexterity. Not even while engaged in this unpleasant office were they silent, but sang away over their work. I had a mind to try whether all the house servants were singers and accordingly asked for a drink of wine. Instantly an attendant was at my side, pouring out the liquor to the accompaniment of the same sort of shrill recitative. Demand what you would, it was the same; you might have supposed yourself among a troupe of pantomime actors rather than at a respectable citizen’s table.