Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  “‘Now Phoebe at the full lifted up her white beam, and led forth the smaller stars with her glowing torch, and the Greeks unbarred the horse, and poured out their warriors among Priam’s sons drowned in darkness and wine. The leaders try their strength in arms, as a steed untied from the Thessalian yoke will toss his head and lofty mane as he rushes forth. They draw their swords, brandish their shields, and begin the fight. One slays Trojans heavy with drink, and prolongs their sleep to death that endeth all, another lights torches from the altars, and calls on the holy places of Troy to fight against the Trojans.’” . . .

  [XC] Ex is, qui in porticibus spatiabantur, lapides in Eumolpum recitantem miserunt. At ille, qui plausum ingenii sui noverat, operuit caput extraque templum profugit. Timui ego, ne me poetam vocaret. Itaque subsecutus fugientem ad litus perveni, et ut primum extra teli coniectum licuit consistere: “Rogo, inquam, quid tibi vis cum isto morbo? Minus quam duabus horis mecum moraris, et saepius poetice quam humane locutus es. Itaque non miror, si te populus lapidibus persequitur. Ego quoque sinum meum saxis onerabo ut, quotiescunque coeperis a te exire, sanguinem tibi a capite mittam”. Movit ille vultum et: “O mi, inquit, adulescens, non hodie primum auspicatus sum. lmmo quoties theatrum, ut recitarem aliquid, intravi, hac me adventicia excipere frequentia solet. Ceterum ne et tecum quoque habeam rixandum, toto die me ab hoc cibo abstinebo. — Immo, inquam ego, si eiuras hodiernam bilem, una cenabimus.”

  Mando aedicularum custodi cenulae officium. <. . .>

  [90] Some of the people who were walking in the galleries threw stones at Eumolpus as he recited. He recognized this tribute to his genius, covered his head, and fled out of the temple. I was afraid that he would call me a poet. So I followed him in his flight, and came to the beach, and as soon as we were out of range and could stop, I said, “Tell me, cannot you get rid of your disease? You have been in my company less than two hours, and you have talked more often like a poet than like a man. I am not surprised that the crowd pursue you with stones. I shall load my pockets with stones too, and whenever you begin to forget yourself I shall let blood from your head.” His expression altered, and he said, “My dear young friend, I have been blessed like this before to-day. Whenever I go into the theatre to recite anything, the people’s way is to welcome me with this kind of present. But I do not want to have anything to quarrel with you about, so I will keep off this food for a whole day.” “Well;” said I, “if you forswear your madness for to-day, we will dine together.” . . .

  I gave the house-porter orders about our supper. . . .

  SECTIONS XCI TO C.

  [XCI] Video Gitona cum linteis et strigilibus parieti applicitum tristem confusumque. Scires non libenter servire. Itaque ut experimentum oculorum caperem. <. . .> Convertit ille solutum gaudio vultum et: “Miserere, inquit, frater. Vbi arma non sunt, libere loquor. Eripe me latroni cruento et qualibet saevitia paenitentiam iudicis tui puni. Satis magnum erit misero solacium tua voluntate cecidisse”. Supprimere ego querelam iubeo, ne quis consilia deprehenderet, relictoque Eumolpo — nam in balneo carmen recitabat — per tenebrosum et sordidum egressum extraho Gitona raptimque in hospitium meum pervolo. Praeclusis deinde foribus invado pectus amplexibus, et perfusum os lacrumis vultu meo contero. Diu vocem neuter invenit; nam puer etiam singultibus crebris amabile pectus quassaverat. “O facinus, inquam, indignum, quod amo te quamvis relictus, et in hoc pectore, cum vulnus ingens fuerit, cicatrix non est. Quid dicis, peregrini amoris concessio? Dignus hac iniuria fui?” Postquam se amari sensit, supercilium altius sustulit. <. . .>

  “Nec amoris arbitrium ad alium iudicem tuli. Sed nihil iam queror, nihil iam memini, si bona fide paenitentiam emendas”. Haec cum inter gemitus lacrimasque fudissem, detersit ille pallio vultum et: “Quaeso, inquit, Encolpi, fidem memoriae tuae appello: ego te reliqui, an tu me prodidisti? Equidem fateor et prae me fero: cum duos armatos viderem, ad fortiorem confugi”. Exosculatus pectus sapientia plenum inieci cervicibus manus, et ut facile intellegeret redisse me in gratiam et optima fide reviviscentem amicitiam, toto pectore adstrinxi.

  [91] I saw Giton, with some towels and scrapers, hugging the wall in sad embarrassment. You could see he was not a willing slave. So to enable me to catch his eye he turned round, his face softened with pleasure, and he said, “Forgive me, brother. As there are no deadly weapons here, I speak freely. Take me away from this bloody robber and punish me as cruelly as you like, your penitent judge. It will be quite enough consolation for my misery to die because you wish it.” I told him to stop his lamentation, for fear anyone should overhear our plans. We left Eumolpus behind — he was reciting a poem in the bathroom — and I took Giton out by a dark, dirty exit, and flew with all speed to my lodgings. Then I shut the door and warmly embraced him, and rubbed my face against his cheek, which was wet with tears. For a time neither of us could utter a sound the boy’s fair body shook with continuous sobs. “It is a shame and a wonder!” I cried, “You left me, and yet I love you, and no scar is left over my heart, where the wound was so deep. Have you any excuse for yielding your love to a stranger? Did I deserve this blow?” As soon as he felt that I loved him, he began to hold his head up. . . .

  “I laid our love’s cause before no other judge. But I make no complaint, I will forget all, if you will prove your penitence by keeping your word.” I poured out my words with groans and tears, but Giton wiped his face on his cloak, and said, “Now, Encolpius, I ask you, I appeal to your honest memory; did I leave you, or did you betray me? I admit, I confess it openly, that when I saw two armed men before me, I hurried to the side of the stronger.” I pressed my lips to his dear wise heart, and put my arms round his neck, and hugged him close to me, to make it quite plain that I was in amity with him again, and that our friendship lived afresh in perfect confidence.

  [XCII] Et iam plena nox erat mulierque cenae mandata curaverat, cum Eumolpus ostium pulsat. Interrogo ego: “Quot estis?” obiterque per rimam foris speculari diligentissime coepi, num Ascyltos una venisset. Deinde ut solum hospitem vidi, momento recepi. Ille ut se in grabatum reiecit viditque Gitona in conspectu ministrantem, movit caput et: “Laudo, inquit, Ganymedem. Oportet hodie bene sit”. Non delectavit me tam curiosum principium, timuique ne in contubernium recepissem Ascylti parem. Instat Eumolpus, et cum puer illi potionem dedisset: “Malo te, inquit, quam balneum totum “ siccatoque avide poculo negat sibi unquam acidius fuisse.” Nam et dum lavor, ait, paene vapulavi, quia conatus sum circa solium sedentibus carmen recitare; et postquam de balneo tanquam de theatro eiectus sum, circuire omnes angulos coepi et clara voce Encolpion clamitare. Ex altera parte iuvenis nudus, qui vestimenta perdiderat, non minore clamoris indignatione Gitona flagitabat. Et me quidem pueri tanquam insanum imitatione petulantissima deriserunt, illum autem frequentia ingens circumvenit cum plausu et admiratione timidissima. Habebat enim inguinum pondus tam grande, ut ipsum hominem laciniam fascini crederes. O iuvenem laboriosum! puto illum pridie incipere, postero die finire. Itaque statim invenit auxilium; nescio quis enim, eques Romanus, ut aiebant, infamis, sua veste errantem circumdedit ac domum abduxit, credo, ut tam magna fortuna solus uteretur. At ego ne mea quidem vestimenta ab officioso recepissem, nisi notorem dedissem. Tanto magis expedit inguina quam ingenia fricare”. Haec Eumolpo dicente mutabam ego frequentissime vultum, iniuriis scilicet inimici mei hilaris, commodis tristis. Vtcunque tamen, tanquam non agnoscerem fabulam, tacui et cenae ordinem explicui. <. . .>

  [92] It was now quite dark, and the woman had seen to our orders for supper, when Eumolpus knocked at the door. I asked, “How many of you are there?” and began as I spoke to look carefully through a chink in the door to see whether Ascyltos had come with him. When I saw that he was the only visitor, I let him in at once. He threw himself on a bed, and when he saw Giton before his eyes waiting at table, he wagged his head and said, “I like your Ganymede. To-day should be a fine time for us.” I was not pleased at this inquisitive opening; I was afraid I had let Ascyltos’s double into the lodgings. Eumolpus persisted, and, when the boy brought
him a drink, said,”I like you better than the whole bathful.” He greedily drank the cup dry, and said he had never taken anything with a sharper tang in it. “Why, I was nearly flogged while I was washing,” he cried,”because I tried to go round the bath and recite poetry to the people sitting in it, and when I was thrown out of the bathroom as if it were a theatre, I began to look round all the corners, and shouted for Encolpius in a loud voice. In another part of the place a naked young man who had lost his clothes kept clamouring for Giton with equally noisy indignation. The boys laughed at me with saucy mimicry as if I were crazy, but a large crowd surrounded him, clapping their hands and humbly admiring. Habebat enim inguinum pondus tam grande, ut ipsum hominem laciniam fascini crederes. O iuvenem laboriosum: puto illum pridie incipere, postero die finire. So he found an ally at once: some Roman knight or other, a low fellow, they said, put his own clothes on him as he strayed round, andtook him off home, I suppose, ut tam magna fortuna solus uteretur. I should never have got my own clothes back from the troublesome attendant if I had not produced a voucher. Tanto magis expedit inguina quam ingenia fricare.” As Eumolpus told me all this, my expression kept changing, for of course I laughed at my enemy’s straits and frowned on his fortune. But anyhow I kept quiet as if I did not know what the story was about, and set forth our bill of fare. . . .

  [XCIII] “Vile est, quod licet, et animus errore lentus iniurias diligit.

  Ales Phasiacis petita Colchis

  atque Afrae volucres placent palato,

  quod non sunt faciles: at albus anser

  et pictis anas renovata pennis

  plebeium sapit. Vltimis ab oris

  attractus scarus atque arata Syrtis

  si quid naufragio dedit, probatur:

  mulus iam gravis est. Amica vincit

  uxorem. Rosa cinnamum veretur.

  Quicquid quaeritur, optimum videtur.”

  — Hoc est, inquam, quod promiseras, ne quem hodie versum faceres? Per fidem, saltem nobis parce, qui te nunquam lapidavimus. Nam si aliquis ex is, qui in eodem synoecio potant, nomen poetae olfecerit, totam concitabit viciniam et nos omnes sub eadem causa obruet. Miserere et aut pinacothecam aut balneum cogita.” Sic me loquentem obiurgavit Giton, mitissimus puer, et negavit recte facere, quod seniori conviciarer simulque oblitus officii mensam, quam humanitate posuissem, contumelia tollerem, multaque alia moderationis verecundiaeque verba, quae formam eius egregie decebant. <. . .>

  [93] “What we may have we do not care about; our minds are bent on folly and love what is troublesome.

  “The bird won from Colchis where Phasis flows, and fowls from Africa, are sweet to taste because they are not easy to win; but the white goose and the duck with bright new feathers have a common savour. The wrasse drawn from far-off shores, and the yield of wrinkled Syrtis is praised if first it wrecks a boat: the mullet by now is a weariness. The mistress eclipses the wife, the rose bows down to the cinnamon. What men must seek after seems ever best.”

  “What about your promise, that you would not make a single verse to-day?” I said. “On your honour, spare us at least: we have never stoned you. If a single one of the people who are drinking in the same tenement with us scents the name of a poet, he will rouse the whole neighbourhood and ruin us all for the same reason. Spare us then, and remember the picture-gallery or the baths.” Giton, the gentle boy, reproved me when I spoke thus, and said that I was wrong to rebuke my elders, and forget my duty so far as to spoil with my insults the dinner I had ordered out of kindness, with much more tolerant and modest advice which well became his beautiful self. . .

  [XCIV] EVMOLPVS AD GITONEM. “O felicem, inquit, matrem tuam, quae te talem peperit: macte virtute esto. Raram fecit mixturam cum sapientia forma. Itaque ne putes te tot verba perdidisse, amatorem invenisti. Ego laudes tuas carminibus implebo. Ego paedagogus et custos, etiam quo non iusseris, sequar. Nec iniuriam Encolpius accipit: alium amat.” Profuit etiam Eumolpo miles ille, qui mihi abstulit gladium; alioquin quem animum adversus Ascylton sumpseram, eum in Eumolpi sanguinem exercuissem. Nec fefellit hoc Gitona. Itaque extra cellam processit, tanquam aquam peteret, iramque meam prudenti absentia extinxit. Paululum ergo intepescente saevitia: “Eumolpe, inquam, iam malo vel carminibus loquaris, quam eiusmodi tibi vota proponas. Et ego iracundus sum, et tu libidinosus: vide, quam non conveniat his moribus. Puta igitur me furiosum esse, cede insaniae, id est, ocius foras exi”. Confusus hac denuntiatione Eumolpus non quaesiit iracundiae causam, sed continuo limen egressus adduxit repente ostium cellae, meque nihil tale expectantem inclusit, exemitque raptim clavem et ad Gitona investigandum cucurrit.

  Inclusus ego suspendio vitam finire constitui. Et iam semicinctium stanti ad parietem spondae iunxeram cervicesque nodo condebam, cum reseratis foribus intrat Eumolpus cum Gitone meque a fatali iam meta revocat ad lucem. Giton praecipue ex dolore in rabiem efferatus tollit clamorem, me utraque manu impulsum praecipitat super lectum: “Erras, inquit, Encolpi, si putas contingere posse, ut ante moriaris. Prior coepi; in Ascylti hospitio gladium quaesivi. Ego si te non invenissem, periturus per praecipitia fui. Et ut scias non longe esse quaerentibus mortem, specta invicem quod me spectare voluisti”. Haec locutus mercennario Eumolpi novaculam rapit, et semel iterumque cervice percussa ante pedes collabitur nostros. Exclamo ego attonitus, secutusque labentem codem ferramento ad mortem viam quaero. Sed neque Giton ulla erat suspicione vulneris laesus, neque ego ullum sentiebam dolorem. Rudis enim novacula et in hoc retusa, ut pueris discentibus audaciam tonsoris daret, instruxerat thecam. Ideoque nec mercennarius ad raptum ferramentum expaverat, nec Eumolpus interpellaverat mimicam mortem.

  [94] “Happy was the mother who bore such a son as you,” he said, “be good and prosper. Beauty and wisdom make a rare conjunction. And do not think that all your words have been wasted. In me you have found a lover. I will do justice to your worth in verse. I will teach and protect you, and follow you even where you do not bid me. I do Encolpius no wrong; he loves another.”

  That soldier who took away my sword did Eumolpus a good turn too; otherwise I would have appeased the wrath raised in me against Ascyltos with the blood of Eumolpus. Giton was not blind to this. So he went out of the room on a pretence of fetching water, and quenched my wrath by his tactful departure. Then, as my fury cooled a little, I said, “I would prefer even that you should talk poetry now, Eumolpus, rather than harbour such hopes. I am choleric, and you are lecherous: you understand that these dispositions do not suit each other. Well, regard me as a maniac, yield to my infirmity, in short, get out quick.” Eumolpus was staggered by this attack, and never asked why I was angry, but went out of the room at once and suddenly banged the door, taking me completely by surprise and shutting me in. He pulled out the key in a moment and ran off to look for Giton.

  I was locked in. I made up my mind to hang myself and die. I had just tied a belt to the frame of a bed which stood by the wall, and was pushing my neck into the noose, when the door was unlocked, Eumolpus came in with Giton, and called me back to light from the very bourne of death. Nay, Giton passed from grief to raving madness, and raised a shout, pushed me with both hands and threw me on the bed, and cried,”Encolpius, you are wrong if you suppose you could possibly die before me. I thought of suicide first; I looked for a sword in Ascyltos’s lodgings. If I had not found you I would have hurled myself to death over a precipice. I will show you that death stands close by those who seek him: behold in your turn the scene you wished me to behold.”

  With these words he snatched a razor from Eumolpus’s servant, drew it once, twice across his throat, and tumbled down at our feet. I gave a cry of horror, rushed to him as he fell, and sought the road of death with the same steel. But Giton was not marked with any trace of a wound, and I did not feel the least pain. The razor was untempered, and specially blunted in order to give boy pupils the courage of a barber: and so it had grown a sheath. So the servant had not been alarmed when the steel was snatched from him, and Eumolpus did not interrupt our death-scene.

  [XCV] Dum haec f
abula inter amantes luditur, deversitor cum parte cenulae intervenit, contemplatusque foedissimam volutationem iacentium: “Rogo, inquit, ebrii estis, an fugitivi, an utrumque? Quis autem grabatum illum erexit, aut quid sibi vult tam furtiva molitio? Vos mehercules ne mercedem cellae daretis, fugere nocte in publicum voluistis. Sed non impune. Iam enim faxo sciatis non viduae hanc insulam esse sed Marci Mannicii”. Exclamat Eumolpus: “Etiam minaris?”; simulque os hominis palma excussissima pulsat. Ille tot hospitum potionibus liber urceolum fictilem in Eumolpi caput iaculatus est, soluitque clamantis frontem, et de cella se proripuit, Eumolpus contumeliae impatiens rapit ligneum candelabrum, sequiturque abeuntem, et creberrimis ictibus supercilium suum vindicat. Fit concursus familiae hospitumque ebriorum frequentia. Ego autem nactus occasionem vindictae Eumolpum excludo, redditaque scordalo vice sine aemulo scilicet et cella utor et nocte.

  Interim coctores insulariique mulcant exclusum, et alius veru extis stridentibus plenum in oculos eius intentat, alius furca de carnario rapta statum proeliantis componit. Anus praecipue lippa, sordidissimo praecincta linteo, soleis ligneis imparibus imposita, canem ingentis magnitudinis catena trahit instigatque in Eumolpon. Sed ille candelabro se ab omni periculo vindicabat.