Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  What sees the lawyer? — ranged a dreadful show,

  The bench, the bar, the judges all a-row!

  The miser dreams of gold, lost treasure finds.

  In woodland ways his horn the huntsman winds.

  The sailor’s vision scenes of wreck describes.

  The harlot wheedles; the adultress bribes.

  The sleeping hound the flying hare pursues;

  And each unhappy wretch old griefs renews.”

  Lichas, however, after duly expiating Tryphaena’s dream, said, “Who is to hinder us searching the ship anyway, that we may not appear to scorn the revelation the gods vouchsafe?”

  The passenger who had so unfortunately surprised our furtive maneuvers during the night, Hesus he was called, now suddenly broke in with the question, “Who were the fellows then that were shaved by moonlight last night, an abominable thing to do, upon my word! For they tell me it’s wicked for any man alive, when aboard ship, to cut either nails or hair, except when the wind is at odds with the waves.”

  [CV] Lichas flew into a passion of anger and consternation at the words, blustering, “Has anyone dared to cut his hair on my ship, and at dead of night too? Produce the culprits instantly, that I may know whose head must fall to purify my vessel from the taint.”

  “It was I,” Eumolpus confessed, “ordered it. If I have brought down ill luck, I shall not escape my share, for am I not to travel in the same ship? But the fact is the offenders had such monstrously long and shaggy hair I ordered the wretches’ unkempt locks to be shorn, that I might not seem to be turning our good ship into a jail, as also that the letters branded on their brows might be legible to all men’s eyes, being no longer overshadowed and hidden by the hair. Amongst other knavish tricks, they have been spending my money on a light-o’-love they kept between them, from whose side I dragged them away only last night reeking with wine and filthy perfumes. Indeed at this very minute they stink of the relics of their debauch — and it is all at my expense!”

  Accordingly, by way of expiation to the tutelary spirit of the ship, it was decreed we should each of us receive forty stripes. Without further delay the savage sailors fall upon us, anxious to appease the deity with our wretched blood. For myself, I digested three lashes with Spartan fortitude; but Giton, at the very first blow, set up such a yell his well remembered voice penetrated straight to Tryphaena’s ears.

  Nor was the mistress the only one startled by his cries; all her maids as well, attracted by the familiar tones, gather round the triangles. Already had his wondrous beauty begun to disarm the sailors and deprecate their rage with its mute appeal, when Tryphaena’s women all chime in with the cry, “Giton! it’s Giton! stay, oh! stay your savage hands. Help, help, mistress! it’s Giton!” Tryphaena turns only too ready an ear to their words, and flies headlong to his side. Lichas, who knew me perfectly, just as well as if he had heard my voice too, now runs up, and looking neither at hands nor face, but instantly lowering his eyes to my middle, politely laid his hands on those parts, and greeted me by my name. Why wonder any longer at Ulysses’ nurse, after twenty years, identifying the scar that proved his birth, when this most observing master mariner, spite of every lineament of face and form being disguised, yet pounced shrewdly on the sole and only attribute that betrayed the fugitive. Tryphaena burst into tears, supposing our disfigurement real and that we had been branded on the brow as slaves and inquired in soft tones of pity, what dungeon we had fallen into on our wanderings, or whose hands had been barbarous enough to inflict so terrible a punishment. Doubtless they had merited some mark of ignominy, the runaways, whom her favors had only turned into enemies — but not such a one as this!

  [CVI] Frenzied with indignation, Lichas sprang forward, crying, “Oh! the simplicity of the woman! to actually believe these scars were made and the letters really imprinted, with the branding-iron! I only wish the marks they have disfigured their faces with were permanent! This would be some satisfaction to us at any rate. As a matter of fact, the whole thing’s a farce, and the lettering a delusion and a snare!”

  Tryphaena was by way of showing some compassion, inasmuch as all was not lost for her pleasures; but Lichas, remembering his wife’s seduction and the insults he had received in the portico of the Temple of Hercules, and showing a countenance fiercely contorted with passion, cries, “This will show you, I imagine, Tryphaena, the immortal gods do govern human lives. Have they not brought the culprits all unwitting on board our ship, yea! and warned us of the fact by dreams coinciding in every particular with the truth? Look you now, how can we pardon offenders whom God himself puts into our hands for chastisement? For my part, I’m not a cruel man; but I dare not spare them, lest I suffer for it myself.”

  Impressed by these superstitious arguments, Tryphaena changed her mind, and declared she would make no further objection to our punishment, but would gladly second so just a piece of retribution. She had received, she added, as cruel wrong as Lichas himself; for had not her good name been publicly traduced before a vulgar mob? [CVII]

  ’Twas terror first gave origin to gods,

  When the forked lightning, flashing from the sky

  Would o’erwhelm towns and lofty Athos fire.

  Next, rising Sun, and waxing, waning Moon,

  Offerings received. So idols filled the world,

  And not a month but had its proper god.

  Far spread the taint; blind superstition led

  The rustic swain to pay his first-fruits’ toll

  To Ceres, and with grapes Bacchus to crown,

  And Pales venerate, the shepherds’ god;

  So Neptune ruled the waves, Pallas the schools.

  Each man of mark, each founder of a State,

  New gods invents, his rival to outstrip.

  Lichas, seeing Tryphaena eager as himself for revenge, ordered our punishment to be renewed and increased. On hearing this Eumolpus endeavored to mitigate his anger by the following speech: “The unhappy beings whose destruction your vengeance claims, imploring your compassion, Lichas, they have chosen me, as one not unknown to you, to the office of mediator, to reconcile them once more to those they formerly held so dear.

  You cannot really suppose the young men fell into this trap by mere chance; for surely the very first thing an intending passenger asks, is the name of the person he is to intrust his safety to. Relent then; be satisfied with the penalties already exacted and suffer free men to proceed to their destination without further injury. The harshest and most unforgiving of masters stay their cruelty, when slaves return home penitent; and do we not all of us spare enemies who surrender? What more do you want or desire? Prostrate before you lie these youths, men of birth and breeding though they be, and what is more than this, friends once bound to you in the ties of closest intimacy. Had they embezzled your money, had they betrayed your trust, by great Hercules! even then your resentment might be satisfied with the pains and penalties you behold. Lo! the marks of servitude upon their brows, and their faces — free men’s faces — wearing voluntarily the degrading badge of punishment!”

  But Lichas cut short the plea of mercy. “Nay! you confuse the issue,” he interrupted; “you should keep each point separate and distinct. First of all, if they came here of their own free will, why did they shave their heads? The man who adopts a disguise is after no good, but is trying to deceive. Secondly, if they were seeking forgiveness and reconciliation through your good offices, why did you take every possible pains to keep your clients concealed? It is plain enough the culprits did fall into the trap accidentally, and that you are merely trying on an artful subterfuge to slip out of reach of our resentment.

  “Then for your special pleading, your noisy claim about their being men of birth and breeding, have a care you don’t injure your case by over-confidence. Whatever is the injured party to do, when the guilty run blindly to their own punishment? But, you urge, they were our friends; the more thoroughly, I say, have they earned their chastisement. The man who wrongs mere stran
gers, is called a robber; he who betrays his friends, is little better than a murderer.”

  Eumolpus, to rebut this damaging reasoning, replies, “There is nothing, I gather, tells more heavily against the unfortunate young men than the fact of their having cut off their hair by night; this is taken to prove they did not come on board voluntarily, but by mischance. I only trust my explanation may seem as simple and straightforward as the act itself was simply and innocently done. They purposed, before ever they embarked, to have eased their heads of an annoying and needless burden, but the wind springing up sooner than was expected forced them to put off their visit to the barber; nor did they for an instant imagine it mattered where they carried out the intention they had formed, knowing nothing of the omen involved or the rules aboard ship.”

  “What made them take the guise of suppliants and shave their heads,” was Lichas’s only answer, “unless possibly because bald heads are more likely to win compassion? But there, what use trying to get at the truth through an interpreter? What have you to say for yourself, you thief? What salamander has burnt off your eyebrows? what god have you vowed your locks to? Answer me, villain.” [CVIII] As for me, I stood dumfounded, silenced by my terror of punishment, unable in my confusion to find a word, so plain was the case against me. Besides, I was so disfigured, what with my cropped head and my eyebrows as bare as my forehead, I could do nothing and say nothing becomingly. But when presently my tearful face was wiped with a wet sponge, and the ink being thus moistened and smeared all over my countenance, my features were all confounded together in one sooty cloud, his anger turned into disgust. Eumolpus stoutly declared he would not stand by and see freeborn men degraded against all right and justice, and protested against our savage foeman’s threats not only in word but in act. His protests were seconded by his hired servant and by one or two passengers very much exhausted by seasickness, and whose interference was more of an inducement to further violence than an accession of strength. I asked for no mercy for myself, but shaking my fists in Tryphaena’s face, I cried out in a bold, loud voice, I would use all my strength upon her, if she laid a finger on Giton, cursed woman that she was, the only person on the ship that really wanted flogging.

  This insolence made Lichas still more angry, for he was furious at seeing me thus abandon my own cause to protest on Giton’s behalf. Nor was Tryphaena less enraged at the affront, and the whole ship’s company was split into two opposing factions. On the one side the barber servant is busied distributing his razors amongst us, after first arming himself with one of them, on the other Tryphaena’s slaves are tucking up their sleeves the better to use their fists. Even the maids did their part, encouraging the combatants with their cries, the pilot alone protesting and declaring he would leave the helm, if they did not make an end of this frantic uproar all about a couple of lecherous blackguards.

  Even this threat failed to mitigate the fury of the disputants, our adversaries fighting for revenge, and ourselves for dear life. Numbers fall on either side, though no one is actually killed; still more retire wounded and bleeding, like soldiers after a pitched battle, without anyone showing the smallest loss of determination.

  At this crisis the gallant Giton suddenly clapped his razor menacingly to his virile parts, threatening to amputate the cause of so many calamities; but Tryphaena forbade the perpetration of the horrid deed, readily granting him quarter. I myself repeatedly laid a similar weapon to my throat, though without any more intention of really killing myself than Giton had of carrying out his threat. At the same time he was able to enact the comedy with the more reckless realism, knowing as he did that the razor in his hand was the identical one he had once already cut his throat with.

  Both sides kept the field with equal resolution, till the pilot, seeing it was likely to be no everyday fight, arranged after no little difficulty that Tryphaena should act as peacemaker and effect a truce. So after mutual pledges had been exchanged in the time-honored fashion, holding forth an olive branch she had hastily snatched from the image of the tutelary deity of the vessel, she advanced boldly to the parley.

  “What direful rage,” she cries, “turns peace to war?

  What crime is ours? No faithless Paris here

  Rides in our ship, nor Menelaus’ bride,

  Nor with a brother’s gore Medea dyed.

  ’Tis slighted love inspires the feud, and craves

  For blood and murderous deeds amidst these waves;

  Why die before our time? your wrath forbear,

  Nor make the harmless sea your passions share!”

  [CIX] This effusion, pronounced by Tryphaena in a broken voice, did something to stop the fray, the combatants at length turning their thoughts to a peaceful solution and ceasing from active hostilities. Eumolpus, the leader on our side, at once seized the opportunity for reconciliation thus offered, and after first indulging in a fierce invective against Lichas and all his doings, put his seal to a treaty of peace, which ran as follows:

  “From the bottom of your heart, you, Tryphaena, do promise and undertake to fore-go all complaint of the wrong done you by Giton; and never, by reason of any act of his committed aforetime, to upbraid, or punish, or in any wise molest him. Furthermore, that you will do nothing to the boy against his free will and pleasure, neither embracing, nor kissing, the said Giton, nor fornicating with him, except under forfeiture of one hundred denars for such offense.

  “Item: from the bottom of your heart, you, Lichas, do promise that you will in no wise annoy Encolpius with word or look of contumely, nor inquire where he may sleep at night; or if you so do, that you will incontinently count down two hundred denars for each offense.”

  A truce being agreed to upon these terms, we laid down our arms, and in order that no vestige of rancor might be left, once the oath was taken, it was resolved we should kiss away all memory of past injuries. All being unanimous for peace, our swelling passions soon subside, and a banquet served with emulous alacrity crowns our reconciliation with the pledge of good-fellowship. The whole ship resounds with singing, and a sudden calm having arrested her progress, one might be seen harpooning the fish that leapt above the waves, while another would he hauling in the struggling prey enticed by his cunningly baited hooks. Sea-birds too came and settled on the main yard; these a practised sportsman touched with his jointed fowling-rods, and conveyed them glued to the limed tackle into our very hands. The down flew dancing in the air, while the larger feathers fell into the sea and tossed lightly to and fro on the foam-capped waves.

  Lichas seemed already on the point of making it up with me, and Tryphaena was throwing the last drops of her wine amorously over Giton, when Eumolpus, who was as drunk as anybody, took it into his head to start jeering at people who were bald-headed and branded. Eventually coming to the end of his exceedingly pointless witticisms, he once more dropped into poetry, and treated us to the following little “Lament for Vanished Locks”:

  Beauty is fallen! thy hair’s soft vernal grace

  To wintry baldness gives untimely place.

  Thy injured temples mourn their ravished shade;

  Waste, like a stubble field, thy brow is laid.

  Fallacious gods! your treacherous gifts how vain!

  You only give us joy, to give us pain.

  Unhappy youth! but late thy curling gold

  E’en Phoebus self might envy to behold;

  But now for smoothness, nor the liquid air,

  Nor watered pumpkin can with thee compare.

  The laughter-loving maids you fly, and fear;

  And death with hasty steps will soon be here.

  His fatal night already clouds thy morn,

  Beauty is fallen! and thy gay locks are shorn.

  [CX] He was still longing, I verily believe, to give us more of this stuff or perhaps something worse, when Tryphaena’s maid led Giton away below and dressed the lad up in one of her mistress’s heads of hair. She next produced eyebrows out of a make-up box, and cleverly following the lines of the
lost features, soon restored him to all his pristine comeliness. Tryphaena saw Giton once more under his true colors, and bursting into tears, gave the boy the first genuine and heartfelt kiss she had bestowed on him since his misfortunes. Rejoiced as I was to see the lad restored to his former beauty, I could not help continually hiding my own face, feeling how extraordinarily I must be disfigured, since Lichas did not deign to give me so much as a word. However I was rescued before long from these sad thoughts by the kind offices of the same maid servant, who now called me aside and decked me out with an equally elegant substitute for my lost ringlets. Indeed my face looked prettier than ever, as it happened to be a flaxen wig.

  But Eumolpus, champion of the distressed and author of the existing harmony, fearing that our cheerfulness should flag for lack of amusing anecdotes, commenced a series of gibes at women’s frailty, — how lightly they fell in love, how quickly they forgot even their own sons for a lover’s sake, asserting there was never yet a woman so chaste she might not be wrought to the wildest excesses by a lawless passion. Without alluding to the old plays and world-renowned examples of women’s folly, he need only instance a case that had occurred, he said, within his own memory, which if we pleased he would now relate. This offer concentrated the attention of all on the speaker, who began as follows:

  [CXI] “There was once upon a time at Ephesus a lady of so high repute for chastity that women would actually come to that city from neighboring lands to see and admire. This fair lady, having lost her husband, was not content with the ordinary signs of mourning, such as walking with hair disheveled behind the funeral car and beating her naked bosom in presence of the assembled crowd; she was fain further to accompany her lost one to his final resting-place, watch over his corpse in the vault where it was laid according to the Greek mode of burial, and weep day and night beside it. So deep was her affliction, neither family nor friends could dissuade her from these austerities and the purpose she had formed of perishing of hunger. Even the Magistrates had to retire worsted after a last but fruitless effort. All mourned as virtually dead already a woman of such singular determination, who had already passed five days without food.