The Satyricon — Complete, Petronius Arbiter [read book txt] 📗

goes. The tables were cleared off to the beat of music, and three white hogs, muzzled, and wearing bells, were brought into the dining-room. The announcer informed us that one was a two-year-old, another three, and the third just turned six. I had an idea that some rope-dancers had come in and that the hogs would perform tricks, just as they do for the crowd on the streets, but Trimalchio dispelled this illusion by asking, “Which one will you have served up immediately, for dinner? Any country cook can manage a dunghill cock, a pentheus hash, or little things like that, but my cooks are well used to serving up calves boiled whole, in their cauldrons!” Then he ordered a cook to be called in at once, and without awaiting our pleasure, he directed that the oldest be butchered, and demanded in a loud voice, “What division do you belong too?” When the fellow made answer that he was from the fortieth, “Were you bought, or born upon my estates?” Trimalchio continued. “Neither,” replied the cook, “I was left to you by Pansa’s will.” “See to it that this is properly done,” Trimalchio warned, “or I’ll have you transferred to the division of messengers!” and the cook, bearing his master’s warning in mind, departed for the kitchen with the next course in tow.







CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH.

Trimalchio’s threatening face relaxed and he turned to us, “If the wine don’t please you,” he said, “I’ll change it; you ought to do justice to it by drinking it. I don’t have to buy it, thanks to the gods. Everything here that makes your mouths water, was produced on one of my country places which I’ve never yet seen, but they tell me it’s down Terracina and Tarentum way. I’ve got a notion to add Sicily to my other little holdings, so in case I want to go to Africa, I’ll be able to sail along my own coasts. But tell me the subject of your speech today, Agamemnon, for, though I don’t plead cases myself, I studied literature for home use, and for fear you should think I don’t care about learning, let me inform you that I have three libraries, one Greek and the others Latin. Give me the outline of your speech if you like me.”

“A poor man and a rich man were enemies,” Agamemmon began, when: “What’s a poor man?” Trimalchio broke in. “Well put,” Agamemnon conceded and went into details upon some problem or other, what it was I do not know. Trimalchio instantly rendered the following verdict, “If that’s the case, there’s nothing to dispute about; if it’s not the case, it don’t amount to anything anyhow.” These flashes of wit, and others equally scintillating, we loudly applauded, and he went on: “Tell me, my dearest Agamemnon, do you remember the twelve labors of Hercules or the story of Ulysses, how the Cyclops threw his thumb out of joint with a pig-headed crowbar? When I was a boy, I used to read those stories in Homer. And then, there’s the Sibyl: with my own eyes I saw her, at Cumae, hanging up in a jar; and whenever the boys would say to her ‘Sibyl, Sibyl, what would you?’ she would answer, ‘I would die.’”

CHAPTER THE FORTY-NINTH.

Before he had run out of wind, a tray upon which was an enormous hog was placed upon the table, almost filling it up. We began to wonder at the dispatch with which it had been prepared and swore that no cock could have been served up in so short a time; moreover, this hog seemed to us far bigger than the boar had been. Trimalchio scrutinized it closely and “What the hell,” he suddenly bawled out, “this hog hain’t been gutted, has it? No, it hain’t, by Hercules, it hain’t! Call that cook! Call that cook in here immediately!” When the crestfallen cook stood at the table and owned up that he had forgotten to bowel him, “So you forgot, did you?” Trimalchio shouted, “You’d think he’d only left out a bit of pepper and cummin, wouldn’t you? Off with his clothes!” The cook was stripped without delay, and stood with hanging head, between two torturers. We all began to make excuses for him at this, saying, “Little things like that are bound to happen once in a while, let us prevail upon you to let him off; if he ever does such a thing again, not a one of us will have a word to say in his behalf.” But for my part, I was mercilessly angry and could not help leaning over towards Agamemnon and whispering in his ear, “It is easily seen that this fellow is criminally careless, is it not? How could anyone forget to draw a hog? If he had served me a fish in that fashion I wouldn’t overlook it, by Hercules, I wouldn’t.” But that was not Trimalchio’s way: his face relaxed into good humor and he said, “Since your memory’s so short, you can gut him right here before our eyes!” The cook put on his tunic, snatched up a carving knife, with a trembling hand, and slashed the hog’s belly in several places. Sausages and meat- puddings, widening the apertures, by their own weight, immediately tumbled out.

CHAPTER THE FIFTIETH.

The whole household burst into unanimous applause at this; “Hurrah for Gaius,” they shouted. As for the cook, he was given a drink and a silver crown and a cup on a salver of Corinthian bronze. Seeing that Agamemnon was eyeing the platter closely, Trimalchio remarked, “I’m the only one that can show the real Corinthian!” I thought that, in his usual purse-proud manner, he was going to boast that his bronzes were all imported from Corinth, but he did even better by saying, “Wouldn’t you like to know how it is that I’m the only one that can show the real Corinthian? Well, it’s because the bronze worker I patronize is named Corinthus, and what’s Corinthian unless it’s what a Corinthus makes? And, so you won’t think I’m a blockhead, I’m going to show you that I’m well acquainted with how Corinthian first came into the world. When Troy was taken, Hannibal, who was a very foxy fellow and a great rascal into the bargain, piled all the gold and silver and bronze statues in one pile and set ‘em afire, melting these different metals into one: then the metal workers took their pick and made bowls and dessert dishes and statuettes as well. That’s how Corinthian was born; neither one nor the other, but an amalgam of all. But I prefer glass, if you don’t mind my saying so; it don’t stink, and if it didn’t break, I’d rather have it than gold, but it’s cheap and common now.”

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIRST.

“But there was an artisan, once upon a time, who made a glass vial that couldn’t be broken. On that account he was admitted to Caesar with his gift; then he dashed it upon the floor, when Caesar handed it back to him. The Emperor was greatly startled, but the artisan picked the vial up off the pavement, and it was dented, just like a brass bowl would have been! He took a little hammer out of his tunic and beat out the dent without any trouble. When he had done that, he thought he would soon be in Jupiter’s heaven, and more especially when Caesar said to him, ‘Is there anyone else who knows how to make this malleable glass? Think now!’ And when he denied that anyone else knew the secret, Caesar ordered his head chopped off, because if this should get out, we would think no more of gold than we would of dirt.”