by Petronius
A hostile Fleet is riding on the main,
And o’er the Alps, with German conquests flushed,
The vengeful Legions pour on guilty Rome.
Straight Fire and Sword and all the dreadful train
Of civil rage before their eyes appear!
Distracting tumults every bosom swayed,
And Reason ‘midst the dubious fears was lost.
This flies by land, and that confides the sea,
As far less dangerous than his native shores!
These run to arms; Fate aids the wild affright,
And each obeys the guidance of his fears.
No certain course the giddy vulgar know,
But through the Gates in thronged confusion crowd,
And rival terror; — Rome to Rumor yields,
And weeping Romans leave their native seats.
This is his hand his trembling children leads,
And this his gods within his bosom hides,
His long-loved threshold quits with mournful looks.
And wings his curses at the absent foe.
There on the husband’s breast the bride complains;
And here his father’s age a pious youth
Supports with filial care, nor feels his load,
Nor fears but for his venerable charge.
Whilst these, insensate! to the field convey
Their treasured wealth, and glut the war with spoils.
As on the deep when stormy Auster blows,
And mounts the billows with tumultuous rage,
Th’ affrighted seamen ply their arts in vain;
The pilots stand aghast; these lash their sails;
Whilst these make land, and those avoid the shores,
And rather Fortune than the rocks confide.
But what can paint the fears that seized all men,
When both the Consuls with great Pompey fled?
Pompey, Hydaspes’ and proud Pontus’ scourge,
The rock of Pirates, whom with wonder Jove
Had thrice beheld in the triumphal Car!
That mighty Chief who gave the Euxine laws,
And taught th’ admiring Bosphorus to obey,
Oh shame! Deserted the Imperial Name,
And meanly left both Rome and Fame behind!
Whilst fickle Fortune gloried in his flight.
[CXXIV] The Gods with horror see th’ intestine jars,
And even celestial breasts consent to fear.
For see the mild pacific train depart.
Exiled the World by our impiety!
First soft-winged Peace extends her snowy arm,
And pulling o’er her brows her olive wreath,
Seeks the Elysian shades with hasty flight.
On her with downcast eyes meek Faith attends,
And mourning Justice with disheveled hair,
And weeping Concord with her garments rent.
But joyful Hell unbolts the brazen doors,
And all her Furies quit the Stygian Court.
Threatening Bellona with Erinys joins,
And dire Megaera armed with fiery brands.
Pale Death, insidious Fraud, and Massacre,
With Rage, burst forth! Who from his fetters freed,
Lifts high his gory head; a helmet hides
His wounded visage, and his left hand grasps
The shield of Mars horrid with countless darts.
Whilst in his right a flaming torch appears,
To light Destruction, and to fire the World.
The Gods descending also left the skies,
Whilst wondering Atlas missed his usual load;
And mortal jars even Heaven itself divide.
In Caesar’s cause Dione first appeared;
Her Pallas aided, and the God of War.
Whilst in espousal of brave Pompey’s part
Cynthia and Phoebus and Cyllene’s son
And his own model, great Alcides, joined.
The trumpets sound! When straight fell Discord raised
Her Stygian head, and shook her matted locks.
With clotted blood her face was covered o’er,
And gummy horrors from her eyes distilled;
Two rows of cankered teeth deformed her mouth,
And from her tongue a stream of poison flowed;
Whilst hissing serpents played around her cheeks;
Her livid skin with rags was scarce concealed,
And in her trembling hand a torch she shook.
Ascending thus from the Tartarean gloom,
She reached the top of lofty Apennine;
Whence viewing all the subject land and sea,
And armies floating on the crowded plains,
This into words her joyful fury broke:
Now, rush ye Nations, rush to mutual arms,
And let Dissension’s torch for ever burn!
For flight no longer shall the Coward save,
Nor age, nor sex, nor children’s pity move,
But the Earth tremble, and her haughtiest towers
Shake in convulsive ruins to the ground.
Do thou, Marcellus, the Decree uphold;
And Curio, thou excite the madding crowd!
Nor thou, persuasive Lentulus, forbear
To aid the Faction with thy potent tongue!
But why, O Caesar, this delayed Revenge?
Why burst’st thou not the Gates of guilty Rome,
And mak’st her treasured pride thy welcome prey?
And thou, O Pompey, know’st thou not thy power?
If thou fear’st Rome, to Epidamnus haste,
And feast Thessalia’s plain with human gore!
Thus Discord spoke. . . . The impious Earth obeyed.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Eumolpus having declaimed this effusion with prodigious volubility, we eventually entered the gates of Croton. Here we baited at a small, mean inn, but started out next morning to find a lodging of greater pretensions. We soon fell in with a mob of legacy hunters, who plied us with questions as to who we were and where we came from. So we answered both inquiries, in strict accordance with the plan arranged between us, with an exaggerated glibness, and they believed every word of it; for they instantly put their fortunes at Eumolpus’s disposal, almost fighting which should be first to do him this service. One and all offer presents, in order to curry favor with the supposed millionaire.
[CXXV] Things went on thus at Croton for a long time, till Eumolpus, intoxicated with success, so completely forgot his former lowly condition as to boast to his followers how no one could resist his influence, and that any misdemeanor they might have committed in the town, they could carry off with impunity by his friends’ good offices. For my part however, though every day I stuffed my swollen carcass with a greater superfluity of good things and really thought Fortune had at last ceased watching me with an eye of malevolence, still I often reflected on my present mode of life and the way it had come about. “What if some astute legacy hunter,” I often said to myself, “sent some one to Africa to make inquiries, and discovered our swindle? What if Eumolpus’s servant, as is just possible, sick of this life of luxury, should give a hint to his cronies and betray the whole imposture out of malice? Why! we should just have to fly once more, return to the penury we have at last got the better of, and start begging afresh. Gods and goddesses of heaven! what a life outlaws lead, forever dreading the penalty of one felony or another!”
[CXXVI] Thus communing with myself, I quit the house in a most melancholy mood, hoping to refresh my spirits with the open air out of doors. I had scarcely entered the public promenade, when a girl of far from unpleasing exterior met me, and calling “Polyaenos,” the name I had adopted by way of disguise, informed me that her mistress desired permission to speak with me.
“You have surely made a mistake,” I answered in some confusion; “I am but a foreigner and a slave, and quite undeserving of the honor.”
“Nay! my mission was to you
rself,” she returned; “but I see, because you know your own beauty, you give yourself airs, and sell your favors, instead of giving them. What else can those waved and well combed locks mean, and that made-up face, and the languishing look of your eyes? For what else that studied gait, and mincing steps that never exceed a measured pace, except to sell your person by the meretricious display of your charms? Look at me; I am no augur, no student of the planets like the astrologers, yet I can infer a man’s character from his looks, and foretell his intentions the moment I see his way of walking. Therefore, if you are willing to sell us what I require, there’s a customer all ready; or, if you will give it, like a gentleman, we shall be glad to be under this obligation to you. You tell me you are a slave and a common varlet; this only the more inflames my mistress’s heated imagination. There are women fancy muck, whose passions are stirred only at the sight of slaves or runner boys with bare legs. Others are hot after gladiators, or dusty muleteers, or actors swaggering on the boards. This is the sort my mistress is; she jumps clean over the fourteen rows from orchestra to gallery, to seek her choice among the rabble of the back benches.”
So, charmed with her fascinating chatter, “Tell me, my dear,” I said, “is this lady who loves me yourself?”
The maid laughed heartily at my cool way of putting it, saying, “Pray! pray! don’t be so mighty pleased with yourself. I’ve never given myself to a slave yet; and God forbid I should waste my embraces on gallows-birds. ’Tis their own lookout, if ladies go kissing the marks the lash has left; for my part, though I’m only a servant maid, I never go with anybody below a knight.
“Tastes differ ’tis as chance disposes;
Some like thorns, and some like roses.”
I was astounded at such abnormal predilections, and thought it monstrous thus to find the maid with the mistress’s fastidiousness, the mistress with the maid’s vulgar tastes.
Presently, after further pleasantries had passed, I begged the girl to bring her mistress into the plane tree avenue. She was quite agreeable, and tucking up her skirts dived into a laurel wood that bordered the promenade. In a very few moments she brought out her mistress from where she was hiding, and led her up to me, a more perfect being than ever artist fashioned. There are no words to express her beauty, for anything I can say will fall far short of the reality. Her locks, which curled naturally, rippled all over her shoulders, her brow was low, the hair being turned back from it, her brows, extending to the very spring of the cheek, almost met between the eyes, which shone brighter than stars in a moonless sky, her nose was slightly aquiline, her little mouth such as Praxiteles gave Diana. Chin, neck, hands, snow-white feet confined in elegant sandals of gold work, all vied with Parian marble in brilliancy. For the first time I thought lightly of Doris, whose long-time admirer I was.
Why tarries Jove, scorning the arts of Love,
Mute and inglorious in the heavens above?
How well the Bull would now the God become,
Or his gray hairs to be transformed to down!
Here’s Danae’s self, — a touch from her would fire,
And make the God in liquid joys expire.
[CXXVII] Quite delighted, she smiled so sweetly I thought I saw the moon breaking full-faced from a cloud. Presently, with fingers punctuating her words, she laughed, “If you are not too proud to enjoy a woman of condition, and one who only within the year has known your sex. I offer you a ‘sister,’ fair youth. You have a ‘brother’ already, I know, for I did not disdain to make inquiries, but what hinders you to adopt a sister too? I claim a like dignity. Only taste and try, when you will, how you like my kisses.”
“Nay!” I replied, “by your own loveliness I adjure you, deign to admit an alien among your worshipers. You will find him a sincere devotee, if you give him leave to adore you. And that you may not think I enter this temple of Love giftless, I will sacrifice my ‘brother’ to you.”
“What!” she cried, “you sacrifice to me the being you cannot live without, on whose kisses your happiness depends, whom you love as I would have you love me?” As she said these words, they sounded so sweetly you might have thought it was the Siren’s harmonies came floating on the breeze. So, lost in admiration and dazzled with a wondrous effulgence brighter than the light of heaven, I was fain to ask my divinity’s name.
“Why! did not my maid tell you,” she replied, “I was called Circe? I am not indeed the daughter of the Sun; nor did my mother ever stay at her good pleasure the course of the revolving globe. Still I have one noble boon to thank heaven for, if the fates unite us two. Yes! some god’s mysterious, silent workings are beneath all this. ’Tis not without a cause Circe loves Polyaenos; a great torch of sympathy flames between these names. Then take your will of me, beloved one. For we have no prying interference to dread, and your ‘brother’ is far away.”
With these words Circe threw her arms, that were softer than down, around my neck, and drew me down on the flower-bespangled grass:
On Ida’s top, when Jove his nymph caressed,
And lawless heat in open view expressed,
His mother Earth in all her charms was seen,
The rose, the violet, the sweet jasmine,
And the fair lily smiling on the green.
Such was the plat whereon my Venus lay;
Our Love was secret, but the charming day
Was bright, like her, and as her temple gay.
Side by side on the grass we lay, dallying with a thousand kisses, the prelude to robuster joys. [CXXVIIII] But alas! a sudden debility of my nerves quite disappointed Circe, who exclaimed, infuriated at the affront, “What now? do my kisses revolt you? is my breath offensive with fasting? are my armpits uncleanly and smelling? If it is nothing of this sort, can it be that you are afraid of Giton?”
Flushing hotly at her words, I lost any little vigor still left me, and my whole frame feeling dislocated, I besought my mistress, “Do not, my Queen, aggravate my misery. I am bewitched.”
So trivial an excuse was far from appeasing Circe’s indignation. She turned her eyes contemptuously away from me, and glancing towards her maid, “Tell me, Chrysis,” she said, “and tell me true. Am I repulsive? am I sluttish? is there some natural blemish disfigures my beauty? Do not deceive your mistress; there must be something strangely amiss about us.”
Then, as Chrysis stood silent, she snatched up a mirror, and after rehearsing all the looks and smiles lovers are wont to exchange, she shook out her robe that lay crumpled on the ground, and flounced off into the Temple of Venus. I was left standing like a convicted felon, or a man horror-struck with some awful vision, asking myself whether the bliss I had been cheated of was indeed a reality or only a dream.
As when in sleep our wanton Fancy sports,
And our fond eyes with hidden riches courts,
We hug the theft; the smiling treasure fills
Our guilty hands; the conscious sweat distills;
Whilst laboring fear sits heavy on the mind,
Lest the big secret should an utterance find.
But when with night th’ illusive joys retreat,
And our eyes open to the gay deceit,
That which we ne’er possessed, as lost, we mourn,
And for imaginary blessings burn.
My calamity really seemed to me a dream, or rather a hallucination; and so long did my enervation last, I could not so much as get up off the ground. However the mind recovering its tone by degrees, my strength slowly came back to me, and I made for home, where feigning indisposition, I threw myself down on my pallet. Before long, Giton, who had heard I was ill, entered my chamber in much concern. To make his mind easier, I told him I had gone to bed merely to take a rest, talking a deal of other stuff besides, but not a word about my misadventure, as I very much dreaded his jealousy. So to avoid all suspicion, drawing him to my side, I tried to give him a proof of my love, but all my panting and sweating was in vain. He got up full of indignation, and upbraiding me with debilitated vigor
and diminished affection, declared he had noticed for a long time I must certainly have been expending my strength of mind and body elsewhere.
“No! no! darling,” I interrupted, “my affection for you has always been the same; but reason now prevails over love and lechery.”
“Well! thank you, thank you for the Socratic innocency of your passion. Alcibiades was not more uncontaminated when he lay in his preceptor’s bed.” [CXXIX] “I tell you, little brother,” I went on, “I have lost all knowledge and sense of manhood. Dead and buried is that part of me that once made me a very Achilles!”
Seeing I was really unnerved, and afraid, if he were caught alone with me, it might give rise to scandal, he withdrew in haste, retreating to an inner room of the house. He was hardly gone when Chrysis entered my room and handed me her mistress’s tablets, on which was written the following letter:
CIRCE TO POLYAENOS — GREETING.
“If I were a mere wanton, I should complain of my disappointment. Instead I am positively grateful to your impotence; for so I enjoyed longer dalliance with the semblance of pleasure. What I ask is, how you do, and whether you got home on your own legs; for doctors say a man cannot walk without nerves. I will tell you what I think; beware, young Sir, of paralysis. I never saw a patient in more imminent danger; upon my word and honor, you are as good as dead already. If a like lethargy attack your knees and hands, I should advise you to send immediately for the undertaker’s men.
“Well! well! dire as is the affront I have received, still I will never grudge a prescription to a man in your miserable plight. If you would be cured, ask Giton’s help. You will recover your nerve, I assure you, if you sleep three nights running apart from your ‘little brother.’ For myself, I have no fear but I can find another admirer to love me a little. My mirror and my reputation both tell me this is true.
Farewell, (if you can)”
As soon as Chrysis saw I had read this caustic epistle to the end, “These accidents are common enough,” she said, “and particularly in this city, where there are women who can lure down the moon out of the sky. So never fear, your matter shall be set right; only write back graciously to my mistress and restore her confidence with a candid and gently-worded reply. For to tell you the honest truth — from the hour you wronged her, she has not been her own woman.”
