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Petronius Arbiter >> The Satyricon, Vol. 1, Introduction
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
THE SATYRICON OF
PETRONIUS ARBITER
Complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh,
in which are incorporated the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena,
and the readings introduced into the text by De Salas.
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
specialization. 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."
"Some," writes the immortal translator of Rabelais, in his preface,
"have deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many condescend
to translate but such as cannot invent; though to do the first well,
requires often as much genius as to do the latter. I wish, reader,
thou mayest be as willing to do the author justice, as I have strove
to do him right."
Many scholars have lamented the failure of Justus Lipsius to comment upon
Petronius or edit an edition of the Satyricon. Had he done so, he might
have gone far toward piercing the veil of darkness which enshrouds the
authorship of the work and the very age in which the composer flourished.
To me, personally, the fact that Laurence Sterne did not undertake a
version, has caused much regret. The master who delineated Tristram
Shandy's father and the intrigue between the Widow Wadman and Uncle Toby
would have drawn Trimalchio and his peers to admiration.
W. C. F.
CONTENTS:
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
THE SATYRICON
NOTES
PROSTITUTION
PAEDERASTIA
CHAPTER NOTES
9 Gladiator obscene
17 Impotence
26 Peepholes in brothels
34 Silver Skeleton
36 Marsyas
40 A pie full of birds
56 Contumelia
116 Life in Rome
116 Legacy hunting
119 Castration
127 Circe's voice
131 Sputum in charms
131 The "infamous finger"
138 The dildo
The Cordax
SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA
Introduction
I Soldiers in love
II Courtesans
III Greek love
IV Pollution
V Virginity
VI Pandars
INTRODUCTION.
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.
I
THE SATYRICON. 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.
II
THE AUTHOR.
a--"Not often," says Studer (Rheinisches Museum, 1843), "has there been
so much dispute about the author, the times, the character and the
purpose of a writing of antiquity as about the fragments of the Satyricon
of Petronius." The discovery and publication of the Trau manuscript
brought about a literary controversy which has had few parallels, and
which has not entirely died out to this day, although the best
authorities ascribe the work to Caius Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiarum
at the court of Nero. "The question as to the date of the narrative of
the adventures of Encolpius and his boon companions must be regarded as
settled," says Theodor Mommsen (Hermes, 1878); "this narrative is
unsurpassed in originality and mastery of treatment among the writings of
Roman literature. Nor does anyone doubt the identity of its author and
the Arbiter Elegantiarum of Nero, whose end Tacitus relates."
In any case, the author of this work, if it be the work of one brain,
must have been a profound psychologist, a master of realism, a
natural-born story teller, and a gentleman.
b--His principal object in writing the work was to amuse but, in amusing,
he also intended to pillory the aristocracy and his wit is as keen as the
point of a rapier; but, when we bear in mind the fact that he was an
ancient, we will find that his cynicism is not cruel, in him there is
none of the malignity of Aristophanes; there is rather the attitude of
the refined patrician who is always under the necessity of facing those
things which he holds most in contempt, the supreme artist who suffers
from the multitude of bill-boards, so to speak, who lashes the posters
but holds in pitying contempt those who know so little of true art that
they mistake those posters for the genuine article. Niebuhr's estimate
of his character is so just and free from prejudice, and proceeds from
a mind which, in itself, was so pure and wholesome, that I will quote it:
"All great dramatic poets are endowed with the power of creating beings
who seem to act and speak with perfect independence, so that the poet is
nothing more than the relator of what takes place. When Goethe had
conceived Faust and Margarete, Mephistopheles and Wagner, they moved and
had their being without any exercise of his will. But in the peculiar
power which Petronius exercises, in its application to every scene, to
every individual character, in everything, noble or mean, which he
undertakes, I know of but one who is fully equal to the Roman, and that
is Diderot. Trimalchio and Agamemnon might have spoken for Petronius,
and the nephew Rameau and the parson Papin for Diderot, in every
condition and on every occasion inexhaustibly, out of their own nature;
just so the purest and noblest souls, whose kind was, after all, not
entirely extinct in their day.
"Diderot and a contemporary, related to him in spirit, Count Gaspar
Gozzi, are marked with the same cynicism which disfigures the Roman;
their age, like his, had become shameless. But as the two former were in
their heart noble, upright, and benevolent men, and as in the writings of
Diderot genuine virtue and a tenderness unknown to his contemporaries
breathe, so the peculiarity of such a genius can, as it seems, be given
to a noble and elevated being only. The deep contempt for prevailing
immorality which naturally leads to cynicism, and a heart which beats for
everything great and glorious,--virtues which then had no existence,
--speak from the pages of the Roman in a language intelligible to every
susceptible heart."
e--Beck, in his paper, "The Age of Petronius Arbiter," concluded that the
author lived and wrote between the years 6 A.D. and 34 A.D., but he
overlooked the possibility that the author might have lived a few years
later, written of conditions as they were in his own times, and yet laid
the action of his novel a few years before. Mommsen and Haley place the
time under Augustus, Buecheler, about 36-7 A.D., and Friedlaender under
Nero.
d--La Porte du Theil places the scene at Naples because of the fact the
city in which our heroes met Agamemnon must have been of some
considerable size because neither Encolpius nor Asclytos could find their
way back to their inn, when once they had left it, because both were
tired out from tramping around in search of it and because Giton had been
so impressed with this danger that he took the precaution to mark the
pillars with chalk in order that they might not be lost a second time.
The Gulf of Naples is the only bit of coastline which fits the needs of
the novel, hence the city must be Naples. The fact that neither of the
characters knew the city proves that they had been recent arrivals, and
this furnishes a clue, vague though it is, to what may have gone before.
Haley, "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology," vol. II, makes out a
very strong case for Puteoli, and his theory of the old town and the new
town is as ingenious as it is able. Haley also has Trimalchio in his
favor, as has also La Porte du Theil. "I saw the Sibyl at Cumae," says
Trimalchio. Now if the scene of the dinner is actually at Cumae this
sounds very peculiar; it might even be a gloss added by some copyist
whose knowledge was not equal to his industry. On the other hand,
suppose Trimalchio is speaking of something so commonplace in his
locality that the second term has become a generic, then the difficulty
disappears. We today, even though standing upon the very spot in Melos
where the Venus was unearthed, would still refer to her as the Venus de
Melos. Friedlaender, in bracketing Cumis, has not taken this
sufficiently into consideration. Mommsen, in an excellent paper (Hermes,
1878), has laid the scene at Cumae. His logic is almost unanswerable,
and the consensus of opinion is in favor of the latter town.
III
REALISM. Realism, as we are concerned with it, may be defined as the
literary effect produced by the marshaling of details in their exactitude
for the purpose of bringing out character. The fact that they may be
ugly and vulgar the reverse, makes not the slightest difference. The
modern realist contemplates the inanimate things which surround us with
peculiar complaisance, and it is right that he should as these things
exert upon us a constant and secret influence. The workings of the human
mind, in complex civilizations, are by no means simple; they are involved
and varied: our thoughts, our feelings, our wills, associate themselves
with an infinite number of sensations and images which play one upon the
other, and which individualize, in some measure, every action we commit,
and stamp it. The merit of our modern realists lies in the fact that
they have studied the things which surround us and our relations to them,
and thus have they been able to make their creations conform to human
experience. The ancients gave little attention to this; the man, with
them, was the important thing; the environment the unimportant. There
are, of course, exceptions; the interview between Ulysses and Nausiskaa
is probably the most striking. From the standpoint of environment,
Petronius, in the greater portion of his work, is an ancient; but one
exception there is, and it is as brilliant as it is important. The
entire episode, in which Trimalchio figures, offers an incredible
abundance of details. The descriptions are exhaustive and minute, but
the author's prime purpose was not description, it was to bring out the
characters, it was to pillory the Roman aristocracy, it was to amuse!
Cicero, in his prosecution of Verres, had shown up this aristocracy in
all its brutality and greed, it remained for the author of the Cena to
hold its absurdity up to the light of day, to lash an extravagance which,
though utterly unbridled, was yet unable to exhaust the looted
accumulations of years of political double dealing and malfeasance in
office. Trimalchio's introduction is a masterstroke, the porter at the
door is another, the effect of the wine upon the women, their jealousy
lest either's husband should seem more liberal, their appraisal of each
other's jewelry, Scintilla's remark anent the finesse of Habinnas'
servant in the mere matter of pandering, the blear-eyed and black-toothed
slave, teasing a little bitch disgustingly fat, offering her pieces of
bread and when, from sheer inability, she refuses to eat, cramming it
down her throat, the effect of the alcohol upon Trimalchio, the little
old lady girded round with a filthy apron, wearing clogs which were not
mates, dragging in a huge dog on a chain, the incomparable humor in the
passage in which Hesus, desperately seasick, sees that which makes him
believe that even worse misfortunes are in store for him: these details
are masterpieces of realism. The description of the night-prowling
shyster lawyer, whose forehead is covered with sebaceous wens, is the
very acme of propriety; our first meeting; with the poet Eumolpus is a
beautiful study in background and perspective. Nineteen centuries have
gone their way since this novel was written, but if we look about us we
will be able to recognize, under the veneer of civilization, the
originals of the Satyricon and we will find that here, in a little corner
of the Roman world, all humanity was held in miniature. Petronius must
be credited with the great merit of having introduced realism into the
novel. By an inspiration of genius, he saw that the framework of
frivolous and licentious novels could be enlarged until it took in
contemporary custom and environment. It is that which assures for him
an eminent place, not in Roman literature alone, but in the literature
of the world.
a--INFLUENCE OF THE SATYRICON UPON LITERATURE. The vagrant heroes of
Petronius are the originals from whom directly, or indirectly, later
authors drew that inspiration which resulted in the great mass of
picaresque fiction; but, great as this is, it is not to this that the
Satyricon owes its powerful influence upon the literature of the world.
It is to the author's recognition of the importance of environment,
of the vital role of inanimate surroundings as a means for bringing out
character and imbuing his episodes and the actions of his characters with
an air of reality and with those impulses and actions which are common to
human experience, that his influence is due. By this, the Roman created
a new style of writing and inaugurated a class of literature which was
without parallel until the time of Apuleius and, in a lesser degree, of
Lucian. This class of literature, though modified essentially from age
to age, in keeping with the dictates of moral purity or bigotry, innocent
or otherwise, has come to be the very stuff of which literary success in
fiction is made. One may write a successful book without a thread of
romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of
realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book, and it is
frequently to this that the failure of a novel is due, although the
critic might be at a loss to explain it. Petronius lies behind Tristram
Shandy, his influence can be detected in Smollett, and even Fielding paid
tribute to him.
IV
FORGERIES OF PETRONIUS.
From the very nature of the writings of such an author as Petronius, it
is evident that the gaps in the text would have a marked tendency to
stimulate the curiosity of literary forgers and to tempt their sagacity,
literary or otherwise. The recovery of the Trimalchionian episode, and
the subsequent pamphleteering would by no means eradicate this "cacoethes
emendandi."
When, circa 1650, the library of the unfortunate Nicolas Cippico yielded
up the Trau fragment, the news of this discovery spread far and wide and
about twelve years later, Statileo, in response to the repeated requests
of the Venetian ambassador, Pietro Basadonna, made with his own hand a
copy of the MS., which he sent to Basadonna. The ambassador, in turn,
permitted this MS. to be printed by one Frambotti, a printer endowed with
more industry than critical acumen, and the resultant textual conflation
had much to do with the pamphlet war which followed. Had this Paduan
printer followed the explicit directions which he received, and printed
exactly what was given him much good paper might have been saved and a
very interesting chapter in the history of literary forgery would
probably never have been written. The pamphlet war did not die out until
Bleau, in 1670-71, printed his exact reproduction of the Trau manuscript
and the corrections introduced by that licentiousness of emendation of
which we have spoken.
In October, 1690, Francois Nodot, a French soldier of fortune, a
commissary officer who combined belles lettres and philosophy with his
official duties, wrote to Charpentier, President of the Academy of
France, calling, his attention to a copy of a manuscript which he (Nodot)
possessed, and which came into his hands in the following manner: one
Du Pin, a French officer detailed to service with Austria, had been
present at the sack of Belgrade in 1688. That this Du Pin had, while
there, made the acquaintance of a certain Greek renegade, having, as a
matter of fact, stayed in the house of this renegade. The Greek's
father, a man of some learning, had by some means come into possession of
the MS., and Du Pin, in going through some of the books in the house, had
come across it. He had experienced the utmost difficulty in deciphering
the letters, and finally, driven by curiosity, had retained a copyist and
had it copied out. That this Du Pin had this copy in his house at
Frankfort, and that he had given Nodot to understand that if he (Nodot)
came to Frankfort, he would be permitted to see this copy. Owing to the
exigencies of military service, Nodot had been unable to go in person to
Frankfort, and that he had therefore availed himself of the friendly
interest and services of a certain merchant of Frankfort, who had
volunteered to find an amanuensis, have a copy made, and send it to
Nodot. This was done, and Nodot concludes his letter to Charpentier by
requesting the latter to lay the result before the Academy and ask for
their blessing and approval. These Nodotian Supplements were accepted as
authentic by the Academics of Arles and Nimes, as well as by Charpentier.
In a short time, however, the voices of scholarly skeptics began to be
heard in the land, and accurate and unbiased criticism laid bare the
fraud. The Latinity was attacked and exception taken to Silver Age
prose in which was found a French police regulation which required newly
arrived travellers to register their names in the book of a police
officer of an Italian village of the first century. Although they are
still retained in the text by some editors, this is done to give some
measure of continuity to an otherwise interrupted narrative, but they can
only serve to distort the author and obscure whatever view of him the
reader might otherwise have reached. They are generally printed between
brackets or in different type.
In 1768 another and far abler forger saw the light of day. Jose
Marchena, a Spaniard of Jewish extraction, was destined for an
ecclesiastical career. He received an excellent education which served
to fortify a natural bent toward languages and historical criticism. In
his early youth he showed a marked preference for uncanonical pursuits
and heretical doctrines and before he had reached his thirtieth year
prudence counseled him to prevent the consequences of his heresy and
avoid the too pressing Inquisition by a timely flight into France.
He arrived there in time to throw himself into the fight for liberty,
and in 1800 we find him at Basle attached to the staff of General Moreau.
While there he is said to have amused himself and some of his cronies by
writing notes on what Davenport would have called "Forbidden Subjects,"
and, as a means of publishing his erotic lucubrations, he constructed
this fragment, which brings in those topics on which he had enlarged.
He translated the fragment into French, attached his notes, and issued
the book. There is another story to the effect that he had been
reprimanded by Moreau for having written a loose song and that he
exculpated himself by assuring the general that it was but a new fragment
of Petronius which he had translated. Two days later he had the fragment
ready to prove his contention.