Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  I am really ashamed to relate what followed, it was so unheard-of a piece of luxury. Long-haired slave boys brought in an unguent in a silver basin, and anointed our feet with it as we lay at table, after first wreathing our legs and ankles with garlands. Afterwards a small quantity of the same perfume was poured into the wine-jars and the lamps.

  By this time a strong wish to dance had seized upon Fortunata, while Scintilla’s hands were going quicker in applause even than her tongue in chatter, when Trimalchio said, “I give you my permission, Philargyrus, and you, Cario, notorious champion though you are of the green, to take your places at table; also bid Menophila, your bedfellow, to do the same.” To make a long story short, we were all but thrust off our couches, such a throng of domestics now invaded the dinner- table. I actually noticed occupying a place above my own the cook who had made a goose out of a pig, reeking as he was with fish-pickle and sauces. Indeed he was not satisfied with merely being present, but immediately began an imitation of Ephesus the Tragedian, after which he offered his master a bet that at the next races the green would score first prize.

  [LXXI] Delighted at the challenge, Trimalchio cried, “Yes! my friends, slaves are human beings too, and have sucked mother’s milk as well as we, though untoward circumstance has borne them down. Nevertheless, without prejudicing me, they shall some day soon drink the water of the free. In a word, I enfranchise them all in my will. I bequeath into the bargain a farm and his bedfellow to Philargyrus, a street block to Cario, besides a twentieth and a bed and bedding. I name Fortunata my heir, and commend her to all my friends’ kindness. And all this I make public, to the end my whole household may love me now as well as if I were dead already.”

  All began to express their gratitude to so kind a master, when Trimalchio, quite dropping his trifling vein, ordered a copy of his will to be fetched, and read it through from beginning to end amid the groans of all members of the household. Then turning to Habinnas, he asked him, “What say you, dear friend? are you building my monument according to my directions? I ask you particularly that at the feet of my effigy you have my little bitch put, and garlands and perfume caskets and all Petraites’ fights, that by your good help I may live on even after death. The frontage is to be a hundred feet long, and it must reach back two hundred. For I wish to have all kinds of fruit trees growing around my ashes and plenty of vines. Surely it’s a great mistake to make houses so fine for the living, yet to give never a thought to these where we have to dwell far, far longer. And that’s why I especially insist on the notice:

  THIS MONUMENT DOES NOT DESCEND

  TO THE HEIR.

  But I shall take good care to provide in my will against my remains being insulted. For I intend to put one of my freedmen in charge of my burial place, to see that the rabble don’t come running and dirtying up my monument. I beg you to have ships under full sail carved on it, and me sitting on the tribunal, in my Senator’s robes, with five gold rings on my fingers, and showering money from a bag among the public; for you remember I gave a public banquet once, two denars a head. Also there should be shown, if you approve, a banqueting-hall, and all the people enjoying themselves pleasantly. On my right hand put a figure of my wife, Fortunata, holding a dove and leading a little bitch on a leash, also my little lad, and some good capacious wine-jars, stoppered so that the wine may not escape. Also you may carve a broken urn, and a boy weeping over it. Also a horologe in the center, so that anyone looking to see the time must willy-nilly read my name. As for the lettering, look this over carefully and see if you think it is good enough:

  HERE LIES

  C. POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO,

  A SECOND MAECENAS.

  HE WAS NOMINATED SEVIR

  IN HIS ABSENCE.

  HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN A MEMBER

  OF EVERY DECURIA IN ROME,

  BUT DECLINED.

  PIOUS, BRAVE, HONORABLE,

  HE ROSE FROM THE RANKS.

  WITHOUT LEARNING OR EDUCATION,

  HE LEFT A MILLION OF MONEY

  BEHIND HIM.

  FAREWELL;

  GO AND DO THOU LIKEWISE!”

  [LXXII] When he had finished reading this document, Trimalchio fell to weeping copiously. Fortunata wept too; so did Habinnas; so did the servants; in fact, the whole household filled the room with lamentations, for all the world like guests at a funeral. Indeed I was beginning to weep myself, when Trimalchio resumed. “Well!” said he, “as we know we’ve got to die, why not make the most of life? As I should like to see you all happy, let’s jump into the bath. I guarantee you’ll be none the worse; it’s as hot as an oven.”

  “Right! right!” cried Habinnas, “to make two days out of one; nothing I should like better,” and springing up barefoot as he was, he followed Trimalchio, who led the way, clapping his hands.

  For myself I said, turning to Ascyltos, “What think you, Ascyltos? as for me, to look at a bath now would kill me.”

  “Let’s consent,” he replied; “and then, as they are making for the bathroom, escape in the confusion.”

  This being agreed upon, Giton led the way through the colonnade, and we reached the house-door, where the watchdog greeted us with such furious barking that Ascyltos tumbled into the tank in sheer terror. I too, tipsy as I was, and having been once already scared at a painted dog, got dragged in myself in helping him out of the water. However the hall-keeper rescued us, who interfered and quieted the dog, and pulled us out shivering onto terra firma. Giton had already discovered an ingenious way of disarming the animal; anything we had given him from our dinner, he threw to the barking brute, whose temper was appeased and his attention diverted by the food. But when, cold and wet, we asked the hall-keeper to let us out, “You’re much mistaken,” said he, “if you think you can go out the same way you came in. No guest is ever dismissed by the same door; they enter one, go out by another.”

  [LXXIII] So what were we poor unfortunates to do now, prisoners in this new kind of labyrinth, and reduced to choose the bath as the only alternative? We took the bull by the horns therefore, and asked the hall-keeper to show us the way there; then throwing off our clothes, which Giton proceeded to dry in the porch, we entered the bath, which we found to be a narrow chamber, more like a cooling cistern than anything else, with Trimalchio standing upright in it. Not even under these circumstances could he refrain from his loathsome trick of boasting, declaring there was nothing more agreeable than to be free of a crowd in bathing, and that his bath-house occupied the exact site of a former bakery. Presently, feeling tired, he sat down, and tempted by his resonance of the bathroom, turned up his tipsy face and open mouth to the vault, and began murdering some of Menecrates’ songs, as we were told by those who could make out the words.

  The remainder of the company were running hand in hand round the edge of the bath, laughing and shouting at the top of their voices. Others with their hands tied behind their backs, were trying to pick up rings from the pavement in their mouths, or kneeling down, to bend back and kiss the points of their toes. Whilst the others were engaged in these amusements, we got down into the bath, that was being heated for Trimalchio.

  After dissipating the fumes of wine by these means, we were next conducted to another dinner-hall, where Fortunata had laid out a dainty banquet of her own. I noticed especially lamps suspended over the table with miniature figures of fishermen in bronze, tables of soled silver, cups of gilt pottery ware round the board, and wine pouring from a wine skin before our eyes.

  Presently Trimalchio said, “You see, friends, a slave of mine has cut his first beard today, a very careful, thrifty young man, if I may say so without offense. So let’s be jovial, and keep it up till daylight doth appear.” Just as he uttered these words, a cock crew. Trimalchio, much disquieted at the circumstance, ordered wine to be poured under the table, and some even to be sprinkled over the lamp; moreover he shifted a ring from his left hand to his right, saying, “’Tis not for nothing chanticleer has sounded his note of warning; a fire is bound to
happen, or some one’s going to die in the vicinity. Save us from ill! Anyone bringing me yonder prophet of evil, shall have a present for his pains.” [LXXIV] No sooner said than done; a cock was instantly produced from somewhere near, which Trimalchio ordered to be killed and put in the pot to boil. He was cut up accordingly by the same clever cordon bleu who a while before had manufactured game and fish out of a pig, and thrown into a stew-pan. Then whilst Daedalus kept the pot boiling, Fortunata ground pepper in a box-wood mill.

  These dainties being dispatched, Trimalchio turned to the servants, saying, “What! haven’t you had your dinners yet? be off now, and let the relay take your places.” Hereupon a second set of attendants came in, the outgoing slaves crying, “Farewell, Gaius!” and the incoming, “Hail, Gaius!” At this point our mirth was disturbed for the first time; for a rather good-looking slave boy having entered along with the new lot of domestics, Trimalchio laid hold of him and started kissing him over and over again. At this Fortunata, to assert “her lawful and equitable rights” (as she put it), began abusing her husband, calling him an abomination and a disgrace, that he could not restrain his filthy passions, ending up with the epithet “dog!” Trimalchio for his part was so enraged at her railing that he hurled a wine-cup in his wife’s face. Fortunata screamed out, as if she had lost an eye, and clapped her trembling hands to her countenance. Scintilla was equally alarmed, and sheltered her shuddering friend in her bosom. At the same time an officious attendant applied a pitcher of cold water to her cheek, over which the poor lady drooped and fell a-sighing and a-sobbing.

  But Trimalchio went on. “What! what!” he stormed, “has the trollop no memory? didn’t I take her from the stand in the slave-market, and make her a free woman among her equals? But there, she puffs herself out, like the frog in the fable; she’s too proud to spit in her own bosom, the blockhead. If you are born in a hovel, you shouldn’t dream of a palace. As I hope to prosper, I’ll see to it this Cassandra of the camp is brought to reason. Why! when I was only worth twopence, I might have married ten millions of money. You know I might. Agatho, perfumer to the lady next door, drew me aside, and ‘I’ll give you a hint,’ said he; ‘don’t let your race die out.’ But I, with my silly good nature, and not wanting to seem fickle-minded, I’ve driven my ax into my own leg. All right! I’ll make you long yet to dig me up again with your fingernails! And to show this minute the harm you’ve done yourself, I forbid you, Habinnas, to put her statue on my tomb at all, that I may not have any scolding when I’m gone. I’ll teach her I can do her a mischief; I won’t have her so much as kiss my dead body!”

  [LXXV] After this thunderclap, Habinnas began to entreat him to forget and forgive. “Nobody,” he urged, “but goes wrong sometimes; we’re men after all, not gods.” Scintilla spoke to the same purpose with tears in her eyes, and besought him in the name of his good Genius and addressing him as Gaius, to be pacified. Trimalchio could restrain his tears no longer, but cried, “As you hope, Habinnas, to enjoy your little fortune, — if I’ve done anything wrong, spit in my face. I kissed the good, careful lad, not because he’s a pretty boy, but because he’s so thrifty and clever. I tell you he can recite ten pieces, reads his book at sight, has bought himself a Thracian costume out of his daily rations, besides an armchair and a pair of cups. Does he not deserve to be the apple of my eye? But Fortunata won’t have it. That’s your pleasure, is it, you tipsy wench? I warn you, make the most of what you’ve got, you cormorant; and don’t make me nasty, sweetheart, else you’ll get a taste of my temper. You know me; once I’ve made up my mind, I’m just as hard as nails!

  “However, not to forget the living, pray, my good friends, enjoy yourselves. I was once what you are now, but my own merits have made me what you see. It’s gumption makes a man, all the rest’s trash. ‘Buy cheap, and sell dear,’ that’s me; one man will tell you one thing, another another, but I’m just bursting with success. What! crying still, grunty pig? Mark me, I’ll give you something worth crying for. But as I was saying, it was my thriftiness raised me to my present position. When first I came from Asia, I was no higher than this candle-stick. I tell you, I used to measure myself by it every day; and the sooner to get a beard under my nose, I would smear my lips with the lamp oil. But I was my master’s joy for fourteen years; there’s nothing disgraceful in doing your master’s bidding. And I satisfied my mistress into the bargain. You know what I mean; I say no more, for I’m none of your boasters.

  [LXXVI] “Eventually, it so pleased the gods, I found myself king of the castle, and behold! I could twist my master round my finger. To make a long story short, he made me his co-heir with the Emperor, and I came into a senatorial fortune. Still no one is ever satisfied. I longed to be a merchant prince. So, not to be tedious, I built five ships, loaded up with wine, — it was worth its weight in gold just then, — and sent them off to Rome. You might have supposed I’d ordered it so! if you’ll believe me, every one of the ships foundered, and that’s a fact. In one day Neptune swallowed me up thirty millions. Do you imagine I gave in? Not I, by my faith! the loss only whetted my appetite, as if it were a mere nothing. I built more ships, bigger and better found and luckier, till every one allowed I was a well-plucked one. Nothing venture, nothing win, you know; and a big ship’s a big venture. I loaded up again with wine, bacon, beans, perfumery and slaves. Fortunata was a real good wife to me that time; she sold all her jewelry and all her clothes, and laid a hundred gold pieces in my hand; and it proved the leaven of my little property. A thing’s soon done, when the gods will it. One voyage I cleared a round ten millions. Instantly I bought back all the farms that had been my late master’s; I build a house; I buy up cattle to sell again. Whatever I touched, grew like a honeycomb. When I discovered I had as large an income as the whole revenue of my native land amounted to, off hands; I withdrew from commerce, and started lending money among freedmen. Moreover, just when I’d quite made up my mind to have no more to do with trade, an astrologer advised me to the same course, a little Greek fellow, that happened to come to our own town. Serapa he was called, up to all the secrets of the gods. He told me things I had clean forgotten, explaining it all as pat as needle and thread; he knew my inside, he could all but tell me what I’d had for dinner the day before. You would have thought he had lived with me all my life.

  [LXXVII] “Now tell me, Habinnas, — you were there at the time, I think — didn’t he say: ‘You have used your wealth to set a mistress over you. You are not very lucky in your friends. No one is ever properly grateful to you. You have enormous estates. You are nourishing a viper beneath your wing,’ and — why should I not tell you? — that I have now left me to live thirty years, four months and two days. Also I am soon to come in for another fortune. This is what my Fate has in store for me. And if I have the luck to extend my lands to Apulia, I shall have done pretty well in my day. Meantime by Mercury’s good help, I have built this house. You remember it as a cottage; it’s as big as a temple now. It has four dining-rooms, twenty bedrooms, two marble porticos, a series of storerooms up stairs, the chamber where I sleep myself, this viper’s sitting-room, an excellent porter’s lodge; while the guest chambers afford ample accommodations. In fact, when Scaurus comes this way, there’s nowhere he better likes to stop at, and he has an ancestral mansion of his own by the seaside. Yes! and there are plenty more fine things I’ll show you directly. Take my word for it, — Have a penny, good for a penny; have something, and you’re thought something. So your humble servant, who was a toad once upon a time, is a king now.

  “Meantime, Stichus, just bring out the graveclothes I propose to be buried in; also the unguent, and a taste of the wine I wish to have my bones washed with.”

  [LXXVIII] Without a moment’s delay, Stichus produced a white shroud and a magistrate’s gown into the dining-hall, and asked us to feel if they were made of good wool. Then his master added with a laugh, “Mind, Stichus, mice and moth don’t get at them; else I’ll have you burned alive. I wish to be buried in all my bra
very, that the whole people may call down the blessings on my head.” Immediately afterwards he opened a pot of spikenard, and after rubbing us all with the ointment, “I only hope,” said he, “it will give me as much pleasure when I’m dead as it does now when I’m alive.” Further he ordered the wine vessels to be filled up, telling us to “imagine you are invited guests at my funeral feast.”

  The thing was getting positively sickening, when Trimalchio, now in a state of disgusting intoxication, commanded a new diversion, a company of horn-blowers, to be introduced; and then stretching himself out along the edge of a couch on a pile of pillows, “Make believe I am dead,” he ordered. “Play something fine.” Then the horn-blowers struck up a loud funeral dirge. In particular one of these undertaker’s men, the most conscientious of the lot, blew so tremendous a fanfare he roused the whole neighborhood. Hereupon the watchman in charge of the surrounding district, thinking Trimalchio’s house was on fire, suddenly burst open the door, and rushing in with water and axes, started the much admired confusion usual under such circumstances. For our part, we seized the excellent opportunity thus offered, snapped our fingers in Agamemnon’s face, and rushed away helter-skelter just as if we were escaping from a real conflagration.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  [LXXIX] We had never a torch to guide our wandering steps, while the silent hour of midnight gave small hope of procuring light from chance wayfarers. Added to this was our own intoxication and ignorance of the locality, baffling even by daylight. After dragging our bleeding feet for the best part of an hour over all sorts of stumbling-blocks and fragments of projecting paving-stones, we were finally saved by Giton’s ingenuity. For being afraid even by daylight of missing his way, he had taken the precaution the day before to make every post and pillar on the road with chalk. The strokes he had drawn were visible on the darkest night, their conspicuous whiteness showing wanderers the way. Though truly we were in no less of a fix, even when we did get to our inn. For the old woman had been swilling so long with her customers, you might have set her afire without her knowing anything about it. And we might very likely have passed the night on the doorstep, had not one of Trimalchio’s carriers come up, in charge of ten wagons. Accordingly, without stopping to make any more ado, he burst in the door, and let us in by the same road.