Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  Fortunata then went so far as to take the bracelets off her fat arms to exhibit them to Scintilla’s admiring gaze. At last she even took off her anklets and her hair-net, which she said was eighteen carat. Trimalchio saw her, and ordered the whole lot to be brought to him. “There,” he said, “are a woman’s fetters; that is how we poor fools are plundered. She must have six pounds and a half of gold on her. I have got a bracelet myself, made out of the percentage which I owe to Mercury, that weighs not an ounce under ten pounds.” At last, for fear we should think he was lying, he ordered the scales to be brought, and had the weight carried round and tested. Scintilla was just as bad. She took off a little gold box from her neck, which she called her lucky box. Then she brought out two earrings, and gave them to Fortunata to look at in her turn, and said, “Thanks to my husband’s kindness, nobody has finer ones.” “What?” said Habinnas, you bullied me to buy you a glass bean. I declare if I had a daughter I would cut off her ears. If there were no women, we should never trouble about anything: as it is, we sweat for them and get cold thanks.”

  Meanwhile the tipsy wives laughed together, and gave each other drunken kisses, one prating of her prudence as a housewife, the other of the favourites of her husband and his inattention to her. While they were hobnobbing, Habinnas got up quietly, took Fortunata by the legs, and threw her over on the sofa. She shouted out, “Oh! goodness!” and her dress flew up over her knees. She took refuge in Scintilla’s arms, and buried her burning red face in a napkin.

  [68] After an interval, Trimalchio ordered fresh relays of food to be brought in. The slaves took away all the tables, brought in others, and sprinkled about sawdust coloured with saffron and vermilion, and, what I had never seen before, powdered talc. Trimalchio at once said, “I might really be satisfied with this course; for you have got your fresh relays. But if there is anything nice, put it on.”

  Meanwhile a boy from Alexandria, who was handing hot water, began to imitate a nightingale, and made Trimalchio shout, “Oh! change the tune.” Then there was another joke. A slave, who was sitting at the feet of Habinnas, began, by his master’s orders I suppose, suddenly to cry in a loud voice:

  “Now with his fleet Aeneas held the main.”

  No sharper sound ever pierced my ears; for besides his making barbarous mistakes in raising or lowering his voice, he mixed up Atellane verses with it, so that Virgil jarred on me for the first time in my life. All the same, Habinnas supplied applause when he had at last left off, and said, “He never went to school, but I educated him by sending him round the hawkers in the market. So he has no equal when he wants to imitate mule-drivers or hawkers. He is terribly clever; he is a cobbler too, a cook, a confectioner, a slave of all the talents. He has only two faults, and if he were rid of them he would be simply perfect. He is a Jew and he snores. For I do not mind his being cross-eyed; he has a look like Venus. So that is why he cannot keep silent, and scarcely ever shuts his eyes. I bought him for three hundred denarii.” Scintilla interrupted his story by saying, [69] “To be sure you have forgotten some of the tricks of the vile slave. He is a Don Juan; but I will see to it that he is branded.” Trimalchio laughed and said, “Oh! I perceive he is a Cappadocian; he does not deny himself, and, upon my word, I admire him; for no one can send a dead man any fun. And please do not be jealous, Scintilla. Take my word for it, we know you women too. By my hope of salvation, I used to amuse my own mistress, until even the master became suspicious; and so he banished me to a country stewardship. But peace, my tongue, and you shall have some bread.” The worthless slave took a clay lamp out of his dress, as if he had been complimented, and imitated trumpeters for more than half an hour, Habinnas singing with him and pulling his lower lip down. Finally, he came right into the middle of the room, and shook a pipe of reeds in imitation of flute-players, or gave us the mule-driver’s life, with a cloak and a whip, till Habinnas called him and gave him a kiss, and offered him a drink, saying, “Better than ever, Massa. I will give you a pair of boots.”

  There would have been no end to our troubles if a last course had not been brought in, thrushes made of fine meal and stuffed with raisins and nuts. There followed also quinces, stuck all over with thorns to look like sea-urchins. We could have borne this, if a far more fantastic dish had not driven us even to prefer death by starvation. What we took to be a fat goose, with fish and all kinds of birds round it, was put on, and then Trimalchio said, “My friends, whatever you see here on the table is made out of one body.” With my usual intelligence, I knew at once what it was; I looked at Agamemnon and said, “I shall be surprised if the whole thing is not made out of filth, or at any rate clay. I have seen sham dinners of this kind served in Rome at the Saturnalia.” I had not finished speaking when Trimalchio said, [70] “As I hope to grow in gains and not in girth, my cook made the whole thing out of a pig. There could not be a more valuable fellow. If you want it, he will make you a fish out of a sow’s belly, a woodpigeon out of bacon, a turtledove out of a ham, and a chicken out of a knuckle of pork. That gave me the idea of putting a very pretty name on him; he is called Daedalus. And because he is so intelligent, I brought him back from Rome some knives, made of steel of Noricum, as a present.” He had these knives brought in at once, and contemplated them with admiration. He even allowed us to try the edge on our cheeks.

  Suddenly two slaves came in who had apparently been fighting at a water-tank; at least they still had waterpots on their necks. Trimalchio sat in judgment on the dispute, but neither of them accepted his decision, and they smashed each other’s waterpots With sticks. We were amazed at their drunken folly, and stared at them fighting, and then we saw oysters and cockles fall out of the pots, and a boy picked them up and brought them round on a dish. The clever cook was a match for this exhibition; he offered us snails on a silver gridiron, and sang in an extremely ugly quavering voice.

  I am ashamed to tell you what followed: in defiance of all convention, some long-haired boys brought ointment in a silver basin, and anointed our feet as we lay, after winding little garlands round our feet and ankles. A quantity of the same ointment was then poured into the mixing-bowl and the lamp.

  Fortunata had now grown anxious to dance; Scintilla clapped her hands more often than she spoke, when Trimalchio said, “Philargyrus, you and Cario, though you are a damned wearer of the green, may sit down and tell your good woman, Menophila, to do the same.” I need hardly say that we were nearly pushed off the sofas with the slaves crowding into every seat. Anyhow, I noticed that the cook, who had made a goose out of the pig, sat stinking of pickle and sauces just above me. Not satisfied with having a seat, he at once began to imitate the tragedian Ephesus, and then invited his own master to make a bet on the green being first in the next games.

  [71] Trimalchio cheered up at this dispute and said,”Ah, my friends, a slave is a man and drank his mother’s milk like ourselves, even if cruel fate has trodden him down. Yes, and if I live they shall soon taste the water of freedom. In fact I am setting them all free in my will. I am leaving a property and his good woman to Philargyrus as well, and to Cario a block of buildings, and his manumission fees, and a bed and bedding. I am making Fortunata my heir, and I recommend her to all my friends. I am making all this known so that my slaves may love me now as it I were dead.” They all began to thank their master for his kindness, when he turned serious, and had a copy of the will brought in, which he read aloud from beginning to end, while the slaves moaned and groaned. Then he looked at Habinnas and said, “Now tell me, my dear friend: you will erect a monument as I have directed? I beg you earnestly to put up round the feet of my statue my little dog, and some wreaths, and bottles of perfume, and all the fights of Petraites, so that your kindness may bring me a life after death; and I want the monument to have a frontage of one hundred feet and to be two hundred feet in depth. For I should like to have all kinds of fruit growing round my ashes, and plenty of vines. It is quite wrong for a man to decorate his house while he is alive, and not to trouble ab
out the house where he must make a longer stay. So above all things I want added to the inscription, ‘This monument is not to descend to my heir.’ I shall certainly take care to provide in my will against any injury being done to me when I am dead. I am appointing one of the freedmen to be caretaker of the tomb and prevent the common people from running up and defiling it. I beg you to put ships in full sail on the monument, and me sitting in official robes on my official seat, wearing five gold rings and distributing coin publicly out of a bag; you remember that I gave a free dinner worth two denarii a head. I should like a dining-room table put in too, if you can arrange it. And let me have the whole people there enjoying themselves. On my right hand put a statue of dear Fortunata holding a dove, and let her be leading a little dog with a waistband on; and my dear little boy, and big jars sealed with gypsum, so that the wine may not run out. And have a broken urn carved with a boy weeping over it. And a sundial in the middle, so that anyone who looks at the time will read my name whether he likes it or not. And again, please think carefully whether this in scription seems to you quite appropriate: ‘Here lieth Caius Pompeius Trimalchio, freedman of Maecenas. The degree of Priest of Augustus was conferred upon him in his absence. He might have been attendant on any magistrate in Rome, but refused it. God-fearing, gallant, constant, he started with very little and left thirty millions. He never listened to a philosopher. Fare thee well, Trimalchio: and thou too, passer-by.”‘

  [72] After saying this, Trimalchio began to weep floods of tears. Fortunata wept, Habinnas wept, and then all the slaves began as if they had been invited to his funeral, and filled the dining-room with lamentation. I had even begun to lift up my voice myself, when Trimalchio said, “Well, well, if we know we must die, why should we not live? As I hope for your happiness, let us jump into a bath. My life on it, you will never regret it. It is as hot as a furnace.” “Very true, very true,” said Habinnas, “making two days out of one is my chief delight.” And he got up with bare feet and began to follow Trimalchio, who was clapping his hands.

  I looked at Ascyltos and said, “What do you think? I shall die on the spot at the very sight of a bath.” “Oh! let us say yes,” he replied, “and we will slip away in the crowd while they are looking for the bath.” This was agreed, and Giton led us through the gallery to the door, where the dog on the chain welcomed us with such a noise that Ascyltos fell straight into the fish-pond. As I, who had been terrified even of a painted dog, was drunk too, I fell into the same abyss while I was helping him in his struggles to swim. But the porter saved us by intervening to pacify the dog, and pulled us shivering on to dry land. Giton had ransomed himself from the dog some time before by a very cunning plan; when it barked he threw it all the pieces we had given him at dinner, and food distracted the beast from his anger. But when, chilled to the bone, we asked the porter at least to let us out of the door, he replied, “You are wrong if you suppose you can go out at the door you came in by. None of the guests are ever let out by the same door; they come in at one and go out by another.” [73] There was nothing to be done, we were victims enwound in a new labyrinth, and the idea of washing had begun to grow pleasant, so we asked him instead to show us the bath, and after throwing off our clothes, which Giton began to dry in the front hall, we went in. It was a tiny place like a cold-water cistern, and Trimalchio was standing upright in it. We were not allowed to escape his filthy bragging even there; he declared that there was nothing nicer than washing out of a crowd, and told us that there had once been a bakery on that very spot. He then became tired and sat down, and the echoes of the bathroom encouraged him to open his tipsy jaws to the ceiling and begin to murder Menecrates’s songs, as I was told by those who could under stand what he said. Other guests joined hands and ran round the edge of the bath, roaring with obstreperous laughter at the top of their voices. Some again had their hands tied behind their backs and tried to pick up rings from the floor, or knelt down and bent their heads backwards and tried to touch the tips of their toes. While the others were amusing themselves, we went down into a deep bath which was being heated for Trimalchio.

  Then, having got rid of the effects of our liquor, we were led into another dining-room, where Fortunata had laid out her treasures, so that over the lamps I saw . . . . little bronze fishermen, and tables of solid silver, and china cups with gold settings, and wine being strained through a cloth before our eyes. Then Trimalchio said, “Gentlemen, a slave of mine is celebrating his first shave to-day: an honest, cheeseparing fellow, in a good hour be it spoken. So let us drink deep and keep up dinner till dawn.”

  [74] Just as he was speaking, a cock crew. The noise upset Trimalchio, and he had wine poured under the table, and even the lamp sprinkled with pure wine. Further, he changed a ring on to his right hand, and said, “That trumpeter does not give his signal without a reason. Either there must be a fire, or some one close by is just going to give up the ghost. Lord, save us! So anyone who catches the informer shall have a reward.” He had scarcely spoken, when the cock was brought in from somewhere near. Trimalchio ordered him to be killed and cooked in a saucepan. So he was cut up by the learned cook who had made birds and fishes out of a pig a little while before, and thrown into a cooking-pot. And while Daedalus took a long drink very hot, Fortunata ground up pepper in a boxwood mill.

  After the good things were done, Trimalchio looked at the slaves and said, “Why have you not had dinner yet? Be off, and let some others come and wait.” So another brigade appeared, and the old lot shouted,”Gaius, good-bye,” and the new ones, “Hail! Gaius.” After this, our jollity received its first shock; a rather comely boy came in among the fresh waiters, and Trimalchio took him and began to kiss him warmly. So Fortunata, to assert her rights at law, began to abuse Trimalchio, and called him a dirty disgrace for not behaving himself. At last she even added, “You hound.” Her cursing annoyed Trimalchio, and he let fly a cup in her face. She shrieked as if her eye had been put out, and lifted her trembling hands to her face. Scintilla was frightened too, and shielded her quivering friend with her arms. While an officious slave held a cool little jar to her cheek, Fortunata leaned over it and began to groan and cry. But Trimalchio said, “What is it all about? This chorus-girl has no memory, yet I took her off the sale-platform and made her one of ourselves. But she puffs herself up like a frog, and will not spit for luck; a log she is, not a woman. But if you were born in a slum you cannot sleep in a palace. Damn my soul if I do not properly tame this shameless Cassandra. And I might have married ten million, wretched fool that I was! You know I am speaking the truth. Agatho, the perfumer of the rich woman next door, took me aside and said, ‘I entreat you not to let your family die out.’ But I, being a good chap, didn’t wish to seem fickle, and so I have stuck the axe into my own leg. Very well, I will make you want to dig me up with your finger-nails. But you shall understand what you have done for yourself straight away. Habinnas, do not put any statue of her on my tomb, or I shall have nagging even when I am dead. And to show that I can do her a bad turn, I will not have her kiss me even when I am laid out.”

  [75] After this flash of lightning Habinnas began to implore him to moderate his wrath. “We all have our faults,” he said, “we are men, not angels.” Scintilla cried and said the same, called him Gaius and besought him by his guardian angel to unbend. Trimalchio no longer restrained his tears, and said, “Habinnas, please, as you hope to enjoy your money, spit in my face if I have done anything wrong. I kissed that excellent boy not because he is beautiful, but because he is excellent: he can do division and read books at sight, he has bought a suit of Thracian armour out of his day’s wages, purchased a round-backed chair with his own money, and two ladles. Does he not deserve to be treated well by me? But Fortunata will not have it. Is that your feeling, my high-heeled hussy? I advise you to chew what you have bitten off, you vulture, and not make me show my teeth, my little dear: otherwise you shall know what my anger is. Mark my words: when once my mind is made up, the thing is fixed with a ten-in
ch nail. But we will think of the living. Please make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen. I was once just what you are, but by my own merits I have come to this. A bit of sound sense is what makes men; the rest is all rubbish. ‘I buy well and sell well’: some people will tell you differently. I am bursting with happiness. What, you snorer in bed, are you still whining? I will take care that you have something to whine over. Well, as I was just saying, self-denial has brought me into this fortune. When I came from Asia I was about as tall as this candle-stick. In fact I used to measure myself by it every day, and grease my lips from the lamp to grow a moustache the quicker. Still, I was my master’s favourite for fourteen years. No disgrace in obeying your master’s orders. Well, I used to amuse my mistress too. You know what I mean; I say no more, I am not a conceited man. [76] Then, as the Gods willed, I became the real master of the house, and simply had his brains in my pocket. I need only add that I was joint residuary legatee with Caesar, and came into an estate fit for a senator. But no one is satisfied with nothing. I conceived a passion for business. I will not keep you a moment — I built five ships, got a cargo of wine — which was worth its weight in gold at the time — and sent them to Rome. You may think it was a put-up job; every one was wrecked, truth and no fairy-tales. Neptune gulped down thirty million in one day. Do you think I lost heart? Lord! no, I no more tasted my loss than if nothing had happened. I built some more, bigger, better and more expensive, so that no one could say I was not a brave man. You know, a huge ship has a certain security about her. I got another cargo of wine, bacon, beans, perfumes, and slaves. Fortunata did a noble thing at that time; she sold all her jewellery and all her clothes, and put a hundred gold pieces into my hand. They were the leaven of my fortune. What God wishes soon happens. I made a clear ten million on one voyage. I at once bought up all the estates which had belonged to my patron. I built a house, and bought slaves and cattle; whatever I touched grew like a honey-comb. When I came to have more than the whole revenues of my own country, I threw up the game: I retired from active work and began to finance freedmen. I was quite unwilling to go on with my work when I was encouraged by an astrologer who happened to come to our town, a little Greek called Serapa, who knew the secrets of the Gods. He told me things that I had forgotten myself; explained everything from needle and thread upwards; knew my own inside, and only fell short of telling me what I had had for dinner the day before. [77] You would have thought he had always lived with me. You remember, Habinnas? — I believe you were there?— ‘You fetched your wife from you know where. You are not lucky in your friends. No one is ever as grateful to you as you deserve. You are a man of property. You are nourishing a viper in your bosom,’ and, though I must not tell you this, that even now I had thirty years four months and two days left to live. Moreover I shall soon come into an estate. My oracle tells me so. If I could only extend my boundaries to Apulia I should have gone far enough for my lifetime. Meanwhile I built this house while Mercury watched over me. As you know, it was a tiny place; now it is a palace. It has four dining-rooms, twenty bedrooms, two marble colonnades, an upstairs diningroom, a bedroom where I sleep myself, this viper’s boudoir, an excellent room for the porter; there is plenty of spare room for guests. In fact when Scaurus came he preferred staying here to anywhere else, and he has a family place by the sea. There are plenty of other things which I will show you in a minute. Take my word for it; if you have a penny, that is what you are worth; by what a man hath shall he be reckoned. So your friend who was once a worm is now a king. Meanwhile, Stichus, bring me the graveclothes in which I mean to be carried out. And some ointment, and a mouthful out of that jar which has to be poured over my bones.”