Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  [78] In a moment Stichus had fetched a white windingsheet and dress into the dining-room and . . . [Trimalchio] asked us to feel whether they were made of good wool. Then he gave a little laugh and said, “Mind neither mouse nor moth corrupts them, Stichus; otherwise I will burn you alive. I want to be carried out in splendour, so that the whole crowd calls down blessings on me.” He immediately opened a flask and anointed us all and said, “I hope I shall like this as well in the grave as I do on earth.” Besides this he ordered wine to be poured into a bowl, and said,”Now you must imagine you have been asked to my funeral.”

  The thing was becoming perfectly sickening, when Trimalchio, now deep in the most vile drunkenness, had a new set of performers, some trumpeters, brought into the dining-room, propped himself on a heap of cushions, and stretched himself on his death-bed, saying, “Imagine that I am dead. Play something pretty.” The trumpeters broke into a loud funeral march. One man especially, a slave of the undertaker who was the most decent man in the party, blew such a mighty blast that the whole neighbourhood was roused. The watch, who were patrolling the streets close by, thought Trimalchio’s house was alight, and suddenly burst in the door and began with water and axes to do their duty in creating a disturbance. My friends and I seized this most welcome opportunity, outwitted Agamemnon, and took to our heels as quickly as if there were a real fire.

  [79] There was no guiding torch to show us the way as we wandered; it was now midnight, and the silence gave us no prospect of meeting anyone with a light. Moreover we were drunk, and our ignorance of the quarter would have puzzled us even in the daytime. So after dragging our bleeding feet nearly a whole hour over the flints and broken pots which layout in the road, we were at last put straight by Giton’s cleverness. The careful child had been afraid of losing his way even in broad daylight, and had marked all the posts and columns with chalk; these lines shone through the blackest night, and their brilliant whiteness directed our lost footsteps. But even when we reached our lodgings our agitation was not relieved. For our friend the old woman had had a long night swilling with her lodgers, and would not have noticed if you had set a light to her. We might have had to sleep on the doorstep if Trimalchio’s courier had not come up in state with ten carts. After making a noise for a little while he broke down the house-door and let us in by it. . .

  Ah! gods and goddesses, what a night that was, how soft was the bed. We lay in a warm embrace and with kisses everywhere made exchange of our wandering spirits. Farewell, all earthly troubles. So began my destruction.

  I blessed my luck too soon. I was overcome with drink and let my shaking hands fall, and then Ascyltos, that fountain of all wickedness, took my little friend away et in lectum transtulit suum, volutatusque liberius cum fratre non suo, sive non sentiente iniuriam sive dissimulante, indormivit alienis amplexibus oblitus iuris humani. Itaque ego ut experrectus pertrectavi gaudio despoliatum torum . . . Si qua est amantibus fides, ego dubitavi, an utrumque traicerem gladio somnumque morti iungerem. Tutius dein secutus consilium Gitona quidem verberibus excitavi, I looked angrily at Ascyltos and said, As you have wickedly broken our agreement and the friendship between us, collect your things at once, and find some other place to corrupt.”

  [80] He did not resist, but after we had divided our spoils with scrupulous honesty he said, And now we must divide the boy too.” I thought this was a parting joke. But he drew his sword murderously, and said,”You shall not enjoy this treasure that you brood over all alone. I am rejected, but I must carve off my share too, even with this sword.”

  So I did the same on my side; wrapped my cloak round my arm and put myself in position for a fight. As we raved in folly, the poor boy touched our knees, and humbly besought us with tears not to let that quiet lodging-house be the scene of a Theban duel, or stain the sanctity of a beautiful friendship with each other’s blood. “But if you must commit your crime,” he cried, “look here, here is my throat. Turn your hands this way and imbrue your blades. I deserve to die for breaking the oath of friendship.” We put up our swords at his prayers, and Ascyltos spoke first, I will put an end to this quarrel. Let the boy follow the one he prefers, so that he at any rate may have a free choice of brothers.”

  I had no fears, imagining that long-standing familiarity had passed into a tie of blood, and I accepted the arrangement in hot haste, and referred the dispute to the judge. He did not even pretend to take time to consider, but got up at once as I finished speaking, and chose Ascyltos for his brother. I was thunderstruck at his choice, and fell down on the bed just as I was, without my sword; I should have committed suicide at the sentence if I had not grudged my enemy this triumph. Ascyltos went stalking out with his winnings, and left his comrade, whom he had loved a little while before, and whose fortunes had been so like his own, in despair in a strange place.

  The name of friendship endures so long as there is profit in it: the counter on the board plays a changeable game. While my luck holds you give me your smiles, my friends; when it is out, you turn your faces away in shameful flight.

  A company acts a farce on the stage: one is called the father, one the son, and one is labelled the Rich Man. Soon the comic parts are shut in a book, the men’s real faces come back, and the make-up disappears.

  [81] But still I did not spend much time in weeping. I was afraid that Menelaus the tutor might increase my troubles by finding me alone in the lodgings, so I got together my bundles and took a room in a remote place right on the beach. I shut myself up there for three days; I was haunted by the thought that I was deserted and despised; I beat my breast, already worn with blows, groaned deeply and even cried aloud many times, Could not the earth have opened and swallowed me, or the sea that shows her anger even against the innocent? I fled from justice, I cheated the ring, I killed my host, and with all these badges of courage I am left forsaken in lodgings in a Greek town, a beggar and an exile. And who condemned me to loneliness? A young man tainted by excess of every kind, deserving banishment even by his own admission, a free, yes, a free-born debauchee; his youth was wasted in gambling, and even those who supposed him to be a man treated him like a girl. And his friend? A boy who went into skirts instead of trousers, whose mother persuaded him never to grow up, who was the common sport of the slaves’ quarters, who after going bankrupt, and changing the tune of his vices, has broken the ties of an old friendship, and shamelessly sold everything in a single night’s work like a common woman. Now the lovers lie all night long in each other’s arms, and very likely laugh at my loneliness when they are tired out. But they shall suffer for it. I am no man, and no free citizen, if I do not avenge my wrongs with their hateful blood.”

  [82] With these words I put on my sword, and recruited my strength with a square meal to prevent my losing the battle through weakness. I rushed out of doors at once, and went round all the arcades like a madman. My face was as of one dumb foundered with fury, I thought of nothing but blood and slaughter, and kept putting my hand to the sword-hilt which I had consecrated to the work. Then a soldier, who may have been a swindler or a footpad, noticed me, and said, Hullo, comrade, what regiment and company do you belong to?” I lied stoutly about my captain and my regiment, and he said, “Well, do soldiers in your force walk about in white shoes?” My expression and my trembling showed that I had lied, and he ordered me to hand over my arms and look out for myself. So I was not only robbed, but my revenge was nipped in the bud. I went back to the inn, and by degrees my courage cooled, and I began to bless the footpad’s effrontery. . . .

  Poor Tantalus stands in water and never drinks, nor plucks the fruit above his head: his own desires torment him. So must a rich great man look when, with everything before his eyes, he fears starvation, and digests hunger dry-mouthed. . . .

  It is not much use depending upon calculation when Fate has methods of her own. . . .

  [83] I came into a gallery hung with a wonderful collection of various pictures. I saw the works of Zeuxis not yet overcome by the defacement of ti
me, and I studied with a certain terrified wonder the rough drawings of Protogenes, which rivalled the truth of Nature herself. But when I came to the work of Apelles the Greek which is called the One-legged, I positively worshipped it. For the outlines of his figures were defined with such subtle accuracy, that you would have declared that he had painted their souls as well. In one the eagle was carrying the Shepherd of Ida on high to heaven, and in another fair Hylas resisted a tormenting Naiad. Apollo passed judgement on his accursed hands, and adorned his unstrung lyre with the newborn flower. I cried out as if I were in a desert, among these faces of mere painted lovers, “So even the gods feel love. Jupiter in his heavenly home could find no object for his passion, and came down on earth to sin, yet did no one any harm. The Nymph who ravished Hylas would have restrained her passion had she believed that Hercules would come to dispute her claim. Apollo recalled the ghost of a boy into a flower, and all the stories tell of love’s embraces without a rival. But I have taken for my comrade a friend more cruel than Lycurgus himself.”

  Suddenly, as I strove thus with the empty air, a white-haired old man came into the gallery. His face was troubled, but there seemed to be the promise of some great thing about him; though he was shabby in appearance, so that it was quite plain by this characteristic that he was a man of letters, of the kind that rich men hate. He came and stood by my side. . . .

  “I am a poet,” he said, and one, I hope, of no mean imagination, if one can reckon at all by crowns of honour, which gratitude can set even on unworthy heads. ‘Why are you so badly dressed, then?’ you ask. For that very reason. The worship of genius never made a man rich.

  “The man who trusts the sea consoles himself with high profits; the man who follows war and the camp is girded with gold; the base flatterer lies drunk on a couch of purple dye; the man who tempts young wives gets money for his sin; eloquence alone shivers in rags and cold, and calls upon a neglected art with unprofitable tongue.

  [84] “Yes, that is certainly true: if a man dislikes all vices, and begins to tread a straight path in life, he is hated first of all because his character is superior; for who is able to like what differs from himself? Further, those who only trouble about heaping up riches, do not want anything to be considered better than what is in their own hands. So they persecute men with a passion for learning in every possible way, to make them also look an inferior article to money. . . .

  “Somehow or other poverty is own sister to good sense . . .

  “I wish he that hates me for my virtue were so guiltless that he might be mollified. As it is he is a past master of robbery, and more clever than any pimp.”

  [85] “In Asiam cum a quaestore essem stipendio eductus, hospitium Pergami accepi. Ubi cum libenter habitarem non solum propter cultum aedicularum, sed etiam propter hospitis formosissimum filium, excogitavi rationem, qua non essem patri familiae suspectus amator. Quotiescunque enim in convivio de usu formosorum mentio facta est, tam vehementer excandui, tam severa tristitia violari aures meas obsceno sermone nolui, ut me mater praecipue tanquam unum ex philosophis intueretur. Iam ego coeperam ephebum in gymnasium deducere, ego studia eius ordinare, ego docere ac praecipere, ne quis praedator corporis admitteretur in domum. . .

  Forte cum in triclinio iaceremus, quia dies sollemnis ludum artaverat pigritiamque recedendi imposuerat hilaritas longior, fere circa mediam noctem intellexi puerum vigilare. Itaque timidissimo murmure votum feci et ‘domina’ inquam ‘Venus, si ego hunc puerum basiavero, ita ut ille non sentiat, eras illi par columbarum donabo.’ Audito voluptatis pretio puer stertere coepit. Itaque aggressus simulantem aliquot basiolis invasi. Contentus hoc principio bene mane surrexi electumque par columbarum attuli expectanti ac me voto exsolvi. [86] Proxima nocte cum idem liceret, mutavi optionem et ‘si hunc’ inquam ‘tractavero improba manu, et ille non senserit, gallos gallinaceos pugnacissimos duos donabo patienti.’ Ad hoc votum ephebus ultro se admovit et, puto, vereri coepit, ne ego obdormiscerem. Indulsi ergo sollicito, totoque corpore citra summam voluptatem me ingurgitavi. Deinde ut dies venit, attuli gaudenti quicquid promiseram. Ut tertia nox licentiam dedit, consurrexi . . . ad aurem male dormientis ‘dii’ inquam ‘immortales, si ego huic dormienti abstulero coitum plenum et optabilem, pro hac felicitate cras puero asturconem Macedonicum optimum donabo, cum hac tamen exceptione, si ille non senserit.’ Nunquam altiore somno ephebus obdormivit. Itaque primum implevi lactentibus papillis manus, mox basio inhaesi, deinde in unum omnia vota coniunxi. Mane sedere in cubiculo coepit atque expectare consuetudinem meam. Scis quanto facilius sit, columbas gallosque gallinaceos emere quam asturconem, et praeter hoc etiam timebam, ne tam grande munus suspectam faceret humanitatem meam. Ego aliquot horis spatiatus in hospitium reverti nihilque aliud quam puerum basiavi. At ille circumspiciens ut cervicem meam iunxit amplexu, ‘rogo’ inquit ‘domine, ubi est asturco?” . . .

  [87] Cum ob hanc offensam praeclusissem mihi aditum, quem feceram, iterum ad licentiam redii. Interpositis enim paucis diebus, cum similis casus nos in eandem fortunam rettulisset, ut intellexi stertere patrem, rogare coepi ephebum, ut reverteretur in gratiam mecum, id est ut pateretur satis fieri sibi, et cetera quae libido distenta dictat. At ille plane iratus nihil aliud dicebat nisi hoc: “aut dormi, aut ego iam dicam patri.” Nihil est tam arduum, quod non improbitas extorqueat. Dum dicit: “patrem excitabo,” irrepsi tamen et male repugnanti gaudium extorsi. At ille non indelectatus nequitia mea, postquam diu questus est deceptum se et derisum traductumque inter condiscipulos, quibus iactasset censum meum, “videris tamen” inquit “non ero tui similis. Si quid vis, fac iterum.” Ego vero deposita omni offensa cum puero in gratiam redii ususque beneficio eius in somnum delapsus sum. Sed non fuit contentus iteratione ephebus plenae maturitatis et annis ad patiendum gestientibus. Itaque excitavit me sopitum et “numquid vis?” inquit. Et non plane iam molestum erat munus. Utcunque igitur inter anhelitus sudoresque tritus, quod voluerat, accepit, rursusque in somnum decidi gaudio lassus. Interposita minus hora pungere me manu coepit et dicere: “quare non facimus?” tum ego totiens excitatus plane vehementer excandui et reddidi illi voces suas: ‘aut dormi, aut ego iam patri dicam’” . . .