Of the many masterpieces which classical antiquity has bequeathed to
modern times, few have attained, at intervals, to such popularity; few
have so gripped the interest of scholars and men of letters, as has this
scintillating miscellany known as the Satyricon, ascribed by tradition to
that Petronius who, at the court of Nero, acted as arbiter of elegance and
dictator of fashion. The flashing wit, the masterly touches which bring
out the characters with all the detail of a fine old copper etching; the
marvelous use of realism by this, its first prophet; the sure knowledge of
the perspective and background best adapted to each episode; the racy
style, so smooth, so elegant, so simple when the educated are speaking,
beguile the reader and blind him, at first, to the many discrepancies and
incoherences with which the text, as we have it, is marred. The more one
concentrates upon this author, the more apparent these faults become and
the more one regrets the lacunae in the text. Notwithstanding numerous
articles which deal with this work, some from the pens of the most
profound scholars, its author is still shrouded in the mists of
uncertainty and conjecture. He is as impersonal as Shakespeare, as aloof
as Flaubert, in the opinion of Charles Whibley, and, it may be added, as
genial as Rabelais; an enigmatic genius whose secret will never be laid
bare with the resources at our present command. As I am not writing for
scholars, I do not intend going very deeply into the labyrinth of critical
controversy which surrounds the author and the work, but I shall deal with
a few of the questions which, if properly understood, will enhance the
value of the Satyricon, and contribute, in some degree, to a better
understanding of the author. For the sake of convenience the questions
discussed in this introduction will be arranged in the following order:
1. The Satyricon.
2. The Author.
a His Character.
b His Purpose in Writing.
c Time in which the Action is placed.
d Localization of the Principal Episode.
3. Realism.
a Influence of the Satyricon upon the Literature of the World.
4. The Forgeries.
Heinsius and Scaliger derive the word from the Greek, whence comes our English word satyr, but Casaubon, Dacier and Spanheim derive it from the Latin ‘satura,’ a plate filled with different kinds of food, and they refer to Porphyrion’s ‘multis et variis rebus hoc carmen refertum est.’
The text, as we possess it, may be divided into three divisions: the first
and last relate the adventures of Encolpius and his companions, the
second, which is a digression, describes the Dinner of Trimalchio. That
the work was originally divided into books, we had long known from ancient
glossaries, and we learn, from the title of the Traguriensian manuscript,
that the fragments therein contained are excerpts from the fifteenth and
sixteenth books. An interpolation of Fulgentius (Paris 7975) attributes to
Book Fourteen the scene related in Chapter 20 of the work as we have it,
and the glossary of St. Benedict Floriacensis cites the passage ‘sed video
te totum in illa haerere, quae Troiae halosin ostendit (Chapter 89), as
from Book Fifteen. As there is no reason to suppose that the chapters
intervening between the end of the Cena (Chapter 79) and Chapter 89 are
out of place, it follows that this passage may have belonged to Book
Sixteen, or even Seventeen, but that it could not have belonged to Book
Fifteen. From the interpolation of Fulgentius we may hazard the opinion
that the beginning of the fragments, as we possess them (Chapters 1 to
26), form part of Book Fourteen. The Dinner of Trimalchio probably formed
a complete book, fifteen, and the continuation of the adventures of
Encolpius down to his meeting with Eumolpus (end of Chapter 140) Book
Sixteen. The discomfiture of Eumolpus should have closed this book but not
the entire work, as the exit of the two principal characters is not fixed
at the time our fragments come to an end. The original work, then, would
probably have exceeded Tom Jones in length.
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