But his passion for dancing was interrupted at this stage by a
stenographer who read aloud, as if he were reading the public records,
"On the seventh of the Kalends of July, on Trimalchio's estates near
Cumae, were born thirty boys and forty girls: five hundred pecks of wheat
were taken from the threshing floors and stored in the granaries: five
hundred oxen were put to yoke: the slave Mithridates was crucified on the
same date for cursing the genius of our master, Gaius: on said date ten
million sesterces were returned to the vaults as no sound investment
could be found: on said date, a fire broke out in the gardens at Pompeii,
said fire originating in the house of Nasta, the bailiff." "What's
that?" demanded Trimalchio. "When were the gardens at Pompeii bought for
me?" "Why, last year," answered the stenographer, "for that reason the
item has not appeared in the accounts." Trimalchio flew into a rage at
this. "If I'm not told within six months of any real estate that's
bought for me," he shouted, "I forbid it's being carried to my account at
all!" Next, the edicts of his aediles were read aloud, and the wills of
some of his foresters in which Trimalchio was disinherited by a codicil,
then the names of his bailiffs, and that of a freedwoman who had been
repudiated by a night watchman, after she had been caught in bed with a
bath attendant, that of a porter banished to Baioe, a steward who was
standing trial, and lastly the report of a decision rendered in the
matter of a lawsuit, between some valets. When this was over with, some
rope dancers came in and a very boresome fool stood holding a ladder,
ordering his boy to dance from rung to rung, and finally at the top, all
this to the music of popular airs; then the boy was compelled to jump
through blazing hoops while grasping a huge wine jar with his teeth.
Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks,
remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the
world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure,
rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing
but nonsense. "I bought a company of comedians," he went on, "but I
preferred for them to put on Atellane farces, and I ordered my
flute-player to play Latin airs only."
While our noble Gaius was still talking away, the boy slipped and fell,
alighting upon Trimalchio's arm. The whole household cried out, as did
also the guests, not that they bore such a coarse fellow any good will,
as they would gladly have seen his neck broken, but because such an
unlucky ending to the dinner might make it necessary for them to go into
mourning over a total stranger. As for Trimalchio, he groaned heavily
and bent over his arm as though it had been injured: doctors flocked
around him, and Fortunata was among the very first, her hair was
streaming and she held a cup in her hand and screamed out her grief and
unhappiness. As for the boy who had fallen, he was crawling at our feet,
imploring pardon. I was uneasy for fear his prayers would lead up to
some ridiculous theatrical climax, for I had not yet been able to forget
that cook who had forgotten to bowel that hog, and so, for this reason, I
began to scan the whole dining-room very closely, to see if an automaton
would come out through the wall; and all the more so as a slave was
beaten for having bound up his master's bruised arm in white wool instead
of purple. Nor was my suspicion unjustified, for in place of punishment,
Trimalchio ordered that the boy be freed, so that no one could say that
so exalted a personage had been injured by a slave.
We applauded his action and engaged in a discussion upon the instability of human affairs, which many took sides. "A good reason," declared Trimalchio, "why such an occasion shouldn't slip by without an epigram." He called for his tablets at once, and after racking his brains for a little while, he got off the following:
The unexpected will turn up;
Our whole lives Fortune bungles up.
Falernian, boy, hand round the cup.
This epigram led up to a discussion of the poets, and for a long time, the greatest praise was bestowed upon Mopsus the Thracian, until Trimalchio broke in with: "Professor, I wish you'd tell me how you'd compare Cicero and Publilius. I'm of the opinion that the first was the more eloquent, but that the last moralizes more beautifully, for what can excel these lines?
Insatiable luxury crumbles the walls of war;
To satiate gluttony, peacocks in coops are brought
Arrayed in gold plumage like Babylon tapestry rich.
Numidian guinea-fowls, capons, all perish for thee:
And even the wandering stork, welcome guest that he is,
The emblem of sacred maternity, slender of leg
And gloctoring exile from winter, herald of spring,
Still, finds his last nest in the--cauldron of gluttony base.
India surrenders her pearls; and what mean they to thee?
That thy wife decked with sea-spoils adorning her breast and her head
On the couch of a stranger lies lifting adulterous legs?
The emerald green, the glass bauble, what mean they to thee?
Or the fire of the ruby? Except that pure chastity shine
From the depth of the jewels: in garments of woven wind clad
Our brides might as well take their stand, their game naked to stalk,
As seek it in gossamer tissue transparent as air."
"What should we say was the hardest calling, after literature?" he asked.
"That of the doctor or that of the money-changer, I would say: the
doctor, because he has to know what poor devils have got in their
insides, and when the fever's due: but I hate them like the devil, for my
part, because they're always ordering me on a diet of duck soup: and the
money-changer's, because he's got to be able to see the silver through
the copper plating. When we come to the dumb beasts, the oxen and sheep
are the hardest worked, the oxen, thanks to whose labor we have bread to
chew on, the sheep, because their wool tricks us out so fine. It's the
greatest outrage under the sun for people to eat mutton and then wear a
tunic. Then there's the bee: in my opinion, they're divine insects
because they puke honey, though there are folks that claim that they
bring it from Jupiter, and that's the reason they sting, too, for
wherever you find a sweet, you'll find a bitter too." He was just putting
the philosophers out of business when lottery tickets were passed around
in a cup. A slave boy assigned to that duty read aloud the names of the
souvenirs: "Silver s--ham," a ham was brought in with some silver vinegar
cruets on top of it; "cervical"--something soft for the neck--a piece of
the cervix--neck--of a sheep was brought in; "serisapia"--after wit--"and
contumelia"--insult--we were given must wafers and an apple-melon--and a
phallus--contus--; "porri"--leeks--"and persica," he picked up a whip and
a knife; "passeres"--sparrows" and a fly--trap," the answer was
raisins--uva passa--and Attic honey; "cenatoria"--a dinner toga--"and
forensia"--business dress--he handed out a piece of meat--suggestive of
dinner--and a note-book--suggestive of business--; "canale"--chased by a
dog--"and pedale"--pertaining to the foot--, a hare and a slipper were
brought out; "lamphrey"--murena--"and a letter," he held up a
mouse--mus--and a frog--rana--tied together, and a bundle of
beet--beta--the Greek letter beta--. We laughed long and loud, there
were a thousand of these jokes, more or less, which have now escaped my
memory.
But Ascyltos threw off all restraint and ridiculed everything; throwing
up his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. At last,
one of Trimalchio's fellow-freedmen, the one who had the place next to
me, flew into a rage, "What's the joke, sheep's-head," he bawled, "Don't
our host's swell entertainment suit you? You're richer than he is, I
suppose, and used to dining better! As I hope the guardian spirit of
this house will be on my side, I'd have stopped his bleating long ago if
I'd been sitting next to him. He's a peach, he is, laughing at others;
some vagabond or other from who-knows-where, some night-pad who's not
worth his own piss: just let me piss a ring around him and he wouldn't
know where to run to! I ain't easy riled, no, by Hercules, I ain't, but
worms breed in tender flesh. Look at him laugh! What the hell's he got
to laugh at? Is his family so damned fine-haired? So you're a Roman
knight! Well, I'm a king's son! How's it come that you've been a slave,
you'll ask because I put myself into service because I'd rather be a
Roman citizen than a tax-paying provincial. And now I hope that my life
will be such that no one can jeer at me. I'm a man among men! I take my
stroll bareheaded and owe no man a copper cent. I never had a summons in
my life and no one ever said to me, in the forum, pay me what you owe me.
I've bought a few acres and saved up a few dollars and I feed twenty
bellies and a dog. I ransomed my bedfellow so no one could wipe his
hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen
priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won't need
to blush in my grave after I'm dead. But you're so busy that you can't
look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you
can't see the tick on yourself. You're the only one that thinks we're so
funny; look at your professor, he's older than you are, and we're good
enough for him, but you're only a brat with the milk still in your nose
and all you can prattle is 'ma' or 'mu,' you're only a clay pot, a piece
of leather soaked in water, softer and slipperier, but none the better
for that. You've got more coin than we have, have you? Then eat two
breakfasts and two dinners a day. I'd rather have my reputation than
riches, for my part, and before I make an end of this--who ever dunned me
twice? In all the forty years I was in service, no one could tell
whether I was free or a slave. I was only a long-haired boy when I came
to this colony and the town house was not built then. I did my best to
please my master and he was a digniferous and majestical gentleman whose
nail-parings were worth more than your whole carcass. I had enemies in
his house, too, who would have been glad to trip me up, but I swam the
flood, thanks to his kindness. Those are the things that try your
mettle, for it's as easy to be born a gentleman as to say, 'Come here.'
Well, what are you gaping at now, like a billy-goat in a vetch-field?"
Giton, who had been standing at my feet, and who had for some time been holding in his laughter, burst into an uproarious guffaw, at this last figure of speech, and when Ascyltos' adversary heard it, he turned his abuse upon the boy. "What's so funny, you curly-headed onion," he bellowed, "are the Saturnalia here, I'd like to know? Is it December now?
"When did you pay your twentieth? What's this to you, you gallows-bird,
you crow's meat? I'll call the anger of Jupiter down on you and that
master of yours, who don't keep you in better order. If I didn't respect
my fellow-freedmen, I'd give you what is coming to you right here on the
spot, as I hope to get my belly full of bread, I would. We'll get along
well enough, but those that can't control you are fools; like master like
man's a true saying. I can hardly hold myself in and I'm not hot-headed
by nature, but once let me get a start and I don't care two cents for my
own mother. All right, I'll catch you in the street, you rat, you
toadstool. May I never grow an inch up or down if I don't push your
master into a dunghill, and I'll give you the same medicine, I will, by
Hercules, I will, no matter if you call down Olympian Jupiter himself!
I'll take care of your eight inch ringlets and your two cent master into
the bargain. I'll have my teeth into you, either you'll cut out the
laughing, or I don't know myself. Yes, even if you had a golden beard.
I'll bring the wrath of Minerva down on you and on the fellow that first
made a come-here out of you. No, I never learned geometry or criticism
or other foolishness like that, but I know my capital letters and I can
divide any figure by a hundred, be it in asses, pounds or sesterces.
Let's have a show-down, you and I will make a little bet, here's my coin;
you'll soon find out that your father's money was wasted on your
education, even if you do know a little rhetoric. How's this--what part
of us am I? I come far, I come wide, now guess me! I'll give you
another. What part of us runs but never moves from its place? What part
of us grows but always grows less? But you scurry around and are as
flustered and fidgeted as a mouse in a piss-pot. Shut up and don't annoy
your betters, who don't even know that you've been born. Don't think
that I'm impressed by those boxwood armlets that you did your mistress
out of. Occupo will back me! Let's go into the forum and borrow money,
then you'll see whether this iron ring means credit! Bah! A draggled
fox is a fine sight, ain't it'? I hope I never get rich and die decently
so that the people will swear by my death, if I don't hound you
everywhere with my toga turned inside out. And the fellow that taught
you such manners did a good job too, a chattering ape, all right, no
schoolmaster. We were better taught. 'Is everything in its place?' the
master would ask; go straight home and don't stop and stare at everything
and don't be impudent to your elders. Don't loiter along looking in at
the shops. No second raters came out of that school. I'm what you see
me and I thank the gods it's all due to my own cleverness."
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