The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius. Sulpicia

too, with what grumbling another of these rascals hands you bread that can scarce be broken; the mouldy fragments of impenetrable crust, which would make your jaws ache, and give you no chance of a bite. But delicate bread, as white as snow, made of the finest flower, is reserved for the great man. Mind you keep your hands off! Maintain the respect due to the cutter of the bread![219] Imagine, however, that you have been rather too forward; there stands over you one ready to make you put it down. "Be so good, audacious guest, as to help yourself from the bread-basket you have been used to, and know the color of your own particular bread." "So then![220] it was for this, forsooth, that I so often quitted my wife, and hurried up the steep ascent of the bleak Esquiline, when the vernal sky rattled with the pelting of the pitiless hail, and my great coat dripped whole showers of rain!"

See! with how vast a body the lobster which is served to your patron fills the dish, and with what fine asparagus it is garnished all round; with what a tail he seems to look down in scorn on the assembled guests, when he comes in raised on high by the hands of the tall slave. But to you is served a common crab, scantily hedged in[221] with half an egg sliced, a meal fit only for the dead,[222] and in a dish too small to hold it. Virro himself drowns his fish in oil from Venafrum; but the pale cabbage set before you, poor wretch, will stink of the lamp. For in the sauceboats you are allowed, there is served oil such as the canoe of the Micipsæ has imported in its sharp prow; for which reason no one at Rome would bathe in the same bath with Bocchor; which makes the blackamoors safe even from the attacks of serpents.

Your patron will have a barbel furnished by Corsica, or the rocks of Tauromenium, when all our own waters have been ransacked and failed; while gluttony is raging, and the market is plying its unwearied nets in the neighboring seas, and we do not allow the Tyrrhene fish to reach their full growth. The provinces, therefore, have to supply our kitchen; and thence we are furnished with what Lenas the legacy-hunter may buy, and Aurelia sell again.[223] Virro is presented with a lamprey of the largest size from the Sicilian whirlpool. For while Auster keeps himself close, while he seats himself and dries his wet pinions in prison, the nets,[224] grown venturesome, despise the dangers even of the middle of Charybdis. An eel awaits you—first-cousin to the long snake—or a coarse pike[225] from the Tiber, spotted from the winter's ice, a native of the bank-side, fattened on the filth of the rushing sewer, and used to penetrate the drain even of the middle of Suburra.

      "I should like to have a word with Virro, if he would lend an attentive ear. No one now expects from you such presents as used to be sent by Seneca to his friends of humble station, or the munificent gifts which the bountiful Piso or Cotta used to dispense; for in days of old the glory of giving was esteemed a higher honor than fasces or inscriptions. All we ask is that you would treat us at supper like fellow-citizens. Do this, and then, if you please, be, as many now-a-days are, luxurious when alone, parsimonious to your guests."

Before Virro himself is the liver of a huge goose; a fat capon, as big as a goose; and a wild boar, worthy of the spear of the yellow-haired Meleager, smokes. Then will be served up truffles, if it happen to be spring, and the thunder, devoutly wished for by the epicure, shall augment the supper. "Keep your corn, O Libya," says Alledius, "unyoke your oxen; provided only you send us truffles!" Meanwhile, that no single source of vexation may be wanting, you will see the carver[226] capering and gesticulating with nimble knife, till he has gone through all the directions of his instructor in the art. Nor is it in truth a matter of trifling import with what an air a leveret or a hen is carved. You would be dragged by the heels, like Cacus[227] when conquered by Hercules, and turned out of doors, if you were ever to attempt to open your mouth, as though you had three names.[228] When does Virro pass the cup to you, or take one that your lips have contaminated? Which of you would be so rash, so lost to all sense of shame, as to say, "Drink, sir!" to your patron lord? There are very many things which men with coats worn threadbare dare not say. If any god, or godlike hero, kinder to you than the fates have been, were to give you a knight's estate, what a great man would you, small mortal, become all at once from nothing at all! What a dear friend of Virro's! "Give this to Trebius![229] Set this before Trebius! My dear brother, will you take some of this sweet-bread?"

O money! it is to thee he pays this honor! it is thou and he are the brothers! But if you wish to be my lord, and my lord's lord, let no little Æneas sport in your hall,[230] or a daughter more endearing than he. It is the barrenness of the wife that makes a friend really agreeable and beloved. But even suppose your Mycale should be confined, though she should even present you three boys at a birth, he will be the very one to be delighted with the twittering nest; will order his green stomacher[231] to be brought, and the filberts,[232] and the begged-for penny, whenever the infant parasite shall come to dine with him.

Before his friends whom he holds so vile will be set some very questionable toadstools—before the great man himself, a mushroom[233]—but such an one as Claudius ate, before that furnished by his wife, after which he ate nothing more. Virro will order to be served to himself and his brother Virros such noble apples, on whose fragrance alone you are allowed to revel; such as the eternal autumn of the Phæacians produced; or such as you might fancy purloined from the African sisters. You feast upon some shriveled windfall, such as is munched at the ramparts by him that is armed with buckler and helmet: and, in dread of the lash, learns to hurl his javelin from the shaggy goat's[234] back.

You may imagine, perhaps, that Virro does all this from stinginess. No! his very object is to vex you. For what play, what mime is better than disappointed gluttony? All this, therefore, is done, if you don't know it, that you may be forced to give vent to your bile by your tears, and gnash long your compressed teeth. You fancy yourself a freeman—the great man's welcome guest! He looks upon you as one caught by the savor of his kitchen. Nor does he conjecture amiss. For who is so utterly destitute as twice to bear with his insolence, if it has been his good fortune, when a boy, to wear the Tuscan gold,[235] or even the boss, the badge of leather, that emblem of poverty.

The hope of a good dinner deludes you. "See! sure he'll send us now a half-eaten hare, or a slice of that wild-boar haunch.[236] Now we shall get that capon, as he has helped himself!" Consequently you all sit in silent expectation, with bread in hand, untouched and ready for action. And he that uses you thus shows his wisdom—if you can submit to all these things, then you ought to bear them. Some day or other, you will present your head with shaven crown, to be beaten: nor hesitate to submit to the harsh lash—well worthy of such a banquet and such a friend as this!

      FOOTNOTES:

      [204] Propositi. So ix., 20, flexisse videris propositum.

      [205] Iniquas. From the marked difference