by Petronius
“Chrysis, who despised your lot before, means to follow you now even at peril of her life.”. . .
“Ariadne and Leda had no beauty like hers. Helen and Venus would be nothing beside her. And Paris himself, who decided the quarrel of the goddesses, would have made over Helen and the goddesses too to her, if his eager gaze had seen her to compare with them. If only I were allowed a kiss, or could put my arms round the body that is heaven’s own self; maybe my body would come back to its strength, and the part of me that is drowsed with poison, I believe, might be itself again. No insult turns me back; I forget my floggings, and I think it fine sport to be flung out of doors. Only let her be kind to me again.” . . .
[139] I moved uneasily over the bed again and again, as if I sought for the ghost of my love . . . .
‘I am not the only one whom God and an inexorable doom pursues. Before me the son of Tiryns was driven from the Inachian shore and bore the burden of heaven, and Laomedon before me satisfied the ominous wrath of two gods. Pelias felt Juno’s power, Telephus fought in ignorance, and Ulysses was in awe of Neptune’s kingdom. And me too the heavy wrath of Hellespontine Priapus follows over the earth and over the waters of hoary Nereus.’ . . .
I began to inquire of Giton whether anyone had asked for me. “No one to-day,” he said, “but yesterday a rather pretty woman came in at the door, and talked to me for a long while, till I was tired of her forced conversation, and then began to say that you deserved to be hurt and would have the tortures of a slave, if your adversary persisted with his complaint.”. . .
I had not finished grumbling, when Chrysis came in, ran up and warmly embraced me, and said, “Now I have you as I hoped; you are my desire, my pleasure, you will never put out this flame unless you quench it in my blood.” . . .
One of the new slaves suddenly ran up and said that my master was furious with me because I had now been away from work two days. The best thing I could do would be to get ready some suitable excuse. It was hardly possible that his savage wrath would abate without a flogging for me . . .
[140] Matrona inter primas honesta, Philomela nomine, quae multas saepe hereditates officio aetatis extorserat, tum anus et floris extincti, filium filiamque ingerebat orbis senibus, et per hanc successionem artem suam perseverabat extendere. Ea ergo ad Eumolpum venit et commendare liberos suos eius prudentiae bonitatique . . . credere se et vota sua. Illum esse solum in toto orbe terrarum, qui praeceptis etiam salubribus instruere iuvenes quotidie posset. Ad summam, relinquere se pueros in domo Eumolpi, ut illum loquentem audirent . . . quae sola posset hereditas iuvenibus dari. Nec aliter fecit ac dixerat, filiamque speciosissimam cum fratre ephebo in cubiculo reliquit simulavitque se in templum ire ad vota nuncupanda. Eumolpus, qui tam frugi erat ut illi etiam ego puer viderer, non distulit puellam invitare ad pigiciaca sacra. Sed et podagricum se esse lumborumque solutorum omnibus dixerat, et si non servasset integram simulationem, periclitabatur totam paene tragoediam evertere. Itaque ut constaret mendacio fides, puellam quidem exoravit, ut sederet super commendatam bonitatem, Coraci autem imperavit, ut lectum, in quo ipse iacebat, subiret positisque in pavimento manibus dominum lumbis suis commoveret. Ille lente parebat imperio puellaeque artificium pari motu remunerabat. Cum ergo res ad effectum spectaret, clara Eumolpus voce exhortabatur Coraca, ut spissaret officium. Sic inter mercennarium amicamque positus senex veluti oscillatione ludebat. Hoc semel iterumque ingenti risu, etiam suo, Eumolpus fecerat. Itaque ego quoque, ne desidia consuetudinem perderem, dum frater sororis suae automata per clostellum miratur, accessi temptaturus, an pateretur iniuriam. Nec se reiciebat a blanditiis doctissimus puer, sed me numen inimicum ibi quoque invenit . . .
“Dii maiores sunt, qui me restituerunt in integrum. Mercurius enim, qui animas ducere et reducere solet, suis beneficiis reddidit mihi, quod manus irata praeciderat, ut scias me gratiosiorem esse quam Protesilaum aut quemquam alium antiquorum.” Haec locutus sustuli tunicam Eumolpoque me totum approbavi. At ille primo exhorruit, deinde ut plurimum crederet, utraque manu deorum beneficia tractat . . .
“Socrates, the friend of God and man, used to boast that he had never peeped into a shop, or allowed his eyes to rest on any large crowd. So nothing is more blessed than always to converse with wisdom.”
“All that is very true,” I said, “and no one deserves to fall into misery sooner than the covetous. But how would cheats or pickpockets live, if they did not expose little boxes or purses jingling with money, like hooks, to collect a crowd? Just as dumb creatures are snared by food, human beings would not be caught unless they had a nibble of hope.”. . .
[141] “The ship from Africa with your money and slaves that you promised does not arrive. The fortunehunters are tired out, and their generosity is shrinking. So that unless I am mistaken, our usual luck is on its way back to punish you.”. . .
“All those who come into money under my will, except my own children, will get what I have left them on one condition, that they cut my body in pieces and eat it up in sight of the crowd.” . . .
“We know that in some countries a law is still observed, that dead people shall be eaten by their relations, and the result is that sick people are often blamed for spoiling their own flesh. So I warn my friends not to disobey my orders, but to eat my body as heartily as they damned my soul.” . . .
His great reputation for wealth dulled the eyes and brains of the fools. Gorgias was ready to manage the funeral. . . .
“I am not at all afraid of your stomach turning. You will get it under control if you promise to repay it for one unpleasant hour with heaps of good things. Just shut your eyes and dream you are eating up a solid million instead of human flesh. Besides, we shall find some kind of sauce which will take the taste away. No flesh at all is pleasant in itself, it has to be artificially disguised and reconciled to the unwilling digestion. But if you wish the plan to be supported by precedents, the people of Saguntum, when Hannibal besieged them, ate human flesh without any legacy in prospect. The people of Petelia did likewise in the extremities of famine, and gained nothing by the diet, except of course that they were no longer hungry. And when Numantia was stormed by Scipio, some women were found with the half-eaten bodies of their children hidden in their bosoms.” . . .
FRAGMENTS
I
Servius on Virgil, Aeneid III, 57: “The sacred hunger for gold.” “Sacred” means “accursed.” This expression is derived from a Gallic custom. For whenever the people of Massilia were burdened with pestilence, one of the poor would volunteer to be fed for an entire year out of public funds on food of special purity. After this period he would be decked with sacred herbs and sacred robes, and would be led through the whole state while people cursed him, in order that the sufferings of the whole state might fall upon him, and so he would be cast out. This account has been given in Petronius.
II
Servius on Virgil, Aeneid XII, 159, on the feminine gender of nouns ending in -tor: But if they are not derived from a verb they are common in gender. For in these cases both the masculine and the feminine end alike in -tor, for example, senator, a male or female senator, balneator, a male or female bath attendant, though Petronius makes an exception in speaking ofa “bath-woman” (balneatricem).
III
Pseud-Acro on Horace, Epodes 5, 48: “Canidia biting her thumb”: He expressed the appearance and movements of Canidia in a rage. Petronius, wishing to portray a furious person, says “ biting his thumb to the quick.”
IV
Sidonius Apollinaris Carmen XXIII, 145, 155: Why should I hymn you, tuneful Latin writers, thou of Arpinum, thou of Patavium, thou of Mantua? And thou, Arbiter, who in the gardens of the men of Massilia findest a home on the hallowed tree-trunk as the peer of Hellespontine Priapus?
V
Priscian Institutiones VIII, 16 and XI, 29 (p, 567 ed. Hertz) among the examples by which he shows that the past participles of deponent verbs have a passive meaning: Petronius, “the soul locked (amplexam) in our bosoms.”
Vb
Boethius on Victorinus’s translation of Porphyry, Dialogue II ( ed. Basle): I shall be very glad to do it, he said. But since the morning sun, in Petronius’s words, has now smiled upon the roofs, let us get up, and if there is any other point, it shall be treated later with more careful attention.
VI
Fulgentius Mythologiae I ( ed. Muncker): You do not know . . . how women dread satire. Lawyers may retreat and scholars may not utter a syllable before the flood of a woman’s words, the rhetorician may be dumb and the herald may stop his cries; satire alone can put a limit to their madness, though it be Petronius’s Albucia who is hot.
VII
Fulgentius Mythologiae III, 8 (), (where he remarked that essence of myrrh is very strong): hence too Petronius Arbiter says that he drank a cup of myrrh in order to excite his passion.
VIII
Fulgentius in his Treatise on the Contents of Virgil’s works (): For we have already explained above the application of the myth of Cerberus with Three Heads to quarrels and litigation in the courts. Hence too Petronius says of Euscios, “The barrister was a Cerberus of the courts.”
IX
Fulgentius in his Explanation of Old Words, 42 ( in Mercer’s edition): Ferculum means a dish of flesh. Hence too Petronius Arbiter says, “ After the dish offlesh (ferculum) was brought in.”
X
Fulgentius ibid. 46 (): Valgia really means the twisting of the lips which occurs in vomiting. As Petronius also says, “With lips twisted as in a vomit (valgiter).”
XI
Fulgentius ibid. 52 (): Alucinare means to dream falsely, and is derived from alucitae, which we call conopes (mosquitoes). As Petronius Arbiter says,” For the mosquitoes (alucitae) were troubling my companion.”
XII
Fulgentius ibid. 60 (): Manubiae means the ornaments of kings. Hence Petronius Arbiter also says, “ So many kingly ornaments (manubiae) found in the possession of a runaway.”
XIII
Fulgentius ibid. 61 (): Aumatium means a private place in a public spot such as theatres or the circus. Hence Petronius Arbiter also says, “ I hurled myself into the privy-place (aumatium).”
XIV
Isidorus Origines V, 26, 7: Dolus is the mental cunning on the part of the deceiver: for he does one thing and pretends another. Petronius takes a different view when he says, “What is a wrong (dolus), gentlemen? It occurs whenever anything offensive to the law is done. You understand what a wrong is: now take damage. . .”
XV
Glossary of St. Dionysius: The spring-board is a kind of game. Petronius, “ Now lifted high at the will of the spring-board.”
XVI
From the Glossary of St. Dionysius: Petronius, “ ‘It was quite certainly their usual plan to go through the Grotto of Naples only with backs bent double.”
XVII
Another Glossary:
Suppes suppumpis, that is with feet bent backwards.
Tullia, mediator (?) or princess.
XVIII
Nicolaus Perottus in the Cornucopia (, 26 in the Aldine Edition of 1513): Cosmus too was a superb perfumer, and ointments are called Cosmian after him. The same writer (Juvenal 8, 86) says, “and let him be plunged deep in a bronze vase of Cosmus.” Petronius, “ Bring us, he said, an alabaster box of Cosmus ointment.”
XIX
Terentianus Maurus on Metre:
We see that Horace nowhere employed verse of this rhythm continuously, but the learned Arbiter uses it often in his works. You will remember these lines, which we are used to sing: “ The maidens of Memphis, made ready for the rites of the Gods. The boy coloured deep as the night with speaking gestures.”
Marius Victorinus III, 17 (Keil, Grammatici, II, 138):
We know that the lyric poets inserted some lines of this rhythm and form in their works, as we find too in Arbiter, for example: “ The maidens of Memphis, made ready for the rites of the Gods, “ and again”Coloured deep as the night, [dancing] Egyptian dances.”
XX
Terentianus Maurus on Metre:
Now the analysis, which we will explain, will give us the metre in which they say that Anacreon wrote his sweet old songs. We find that Petronius, as well as many others, used this metre, when he says that this same lyric poet sang in words harmonious to the Muses. But I will explain with what kind of caesura this verse is written. In the line “ Iuverunt segetes meum laborem “ (“ The cornfields have lightened my labour “), the word “ iuverunt “ is the beginning of a hexameter: the remaining words “ segetes meum laborem “ are in the same metre as
“triplici vides ut ortu
Triviae rotetur ignis
volucrique Phoebus axe
rapidum pererret orbem”
” You see how the fire of Trivia spins round from her threefold rising, and Phoebus on his winged wheel traverses the hurrying globe “.)
XXI
Diomede on Grammar III (Keil): Hence arises the caesura which Arbiter employed thus:
“Anus recocta vino
trementibus labellis”
” An old woman soaked in wine, with trembling lips “
XXII
Servius on the Grammar of Donatus (Keil , 22): Again, he uses “Quirites” (“Roman citizens”) only in the plural number. But we read in Horace the accusative “hunc Quiritem” (“this Roman citizen”) making the nominative “hic Quiris.” Again, the same Horace says “Quis te Quiritem?” and there the nominative will be “ hic Quirites, “ as Petronius says.
Pompeius in his Commentary on the Art of Donatus (Keil , 9): No one says “this Roman citizen,” but “these Roman citizens,” although we find the former in books. Read Petronius, and you will find this use of the nominative singular. And Petronius says “ Hic Quirites “ (“this Roman citizen).”
XXIII
A Grammarian on Nouns of uncertain gender (Keil , 23): Fretum (“a strait”) is of the neuter gender, and its plural is freta, as Petronius says” Freta Nereidum “ (“ The straits of the Nereids “).
XXIV
Hieronymus in his Letter to Demetriades CXXX, 19 (Vallarsius ): Boys with hair curled and crimped and skins smelling like foreign musk-rats, about whom Arbiter wrote the line, “ To smell good always is not to smell good, “ showing how the virgin may avoid certain plagues and poisons of modesty.
XXV
Fulgentius Mythologiae II, 6 (, on Prometheus): Although Nicagoras. . . represents his yielding his liver to a vulture, as an allegorical picture of envy. Hence too Petronius Arbiter says: “ The vulture who explores our inmost liver, and drags out our heart and inmost nerves, is not the bird of whom our dainty poets talk, but those diseases of the soul, envy and wantonness.”
SATYRICON: 1922 Firebaugh Translation
Translated by W. C. Firebaugh
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
VOLUME I. ADVENTURES OF ENCOLPIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS
VOLUME II. THE DINNER OF TRIMALCHIO
VOLUME III. FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ENCOLPIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS
VOLUME IV. ENCOLPIUS, GITON AND EUMOLPUS ESCAPE BY SEA
VOLUME V. AFFAIRS AT CROTONA
VOLUME VI. NOTES
VOLUME VII. SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA.
PREFACE
Among the difficulties which beset the path of the conscientious translator, a sense of his own unworthiness must ever take precedence; but another, scarcely less disconcerting, is the likelihood of misunderstanding some allusion which was perfectly familiar to the author and his public, but which, by reason of its purely local significance, is obscure and subject to the misinterpretation and emendation of a later generation.
A translation worthy of the name is as much the product of a literary epoch as it is of the brain and labor of a scholar; and Melmouth’s version of the letters of Pliny the Younger, made, as it was, at a period when the art of English letter writing had attained its highest excellence, may well be the despair of our twentieth century apostles of specializa
tion. Who, today, could imbue a translation of the Golden Ass with the exquisite flavor of William Adlington’s unscholarly version of that masterpiece? Who could rival Arthur Golding’s rendering of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, or Francis Hicke’s masterly rendering of Lucian’s True History? But eternal life means endless change and in nothing is this truth more strikingly manifest than in the growth and decadence of living languages and in the translation of dead tongues into the ever changing tissue of the living. Were it not for this, no translation worthy of the name would ever stand in need of revision, except in instances where the discovery and collation of fresh manuscripts had improved the text. In the case of an author whose characters speak in the argot proper to their surroundings, the necessity for revision is even more imperative; the change in the cultured speech of a language is a process that requires years to become pronounced, the evolution of slang is rapid and its usage ephemeral. For example Stephen Gaselee, in his bibliography of Petronius, calls attention to Harry Thurston Peck’s rendering of “bell um pomum” by “he’s a daisy,” and remarks, appropriately enough, “that this was well enough for 1898; but we would now be more inclined to render it “he’s a peach.” Again, Peck renders “illud erat vivere” by “that was life,” but, in the words of our lyric American jazz, we would be more inclined to render it “that was the life.” “But,” as Professor Gaselee has said, “no rendering of this part of the Satyricon can be final, it must always be in the slang of the hour.”