Book: The Satyricon, Vol. 2 (The Dinner of Trimalchio)
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Petronius Arbiter >> The Satyricon, Vol. 2 (The Dinner of Trimalchio)
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SEVENTH.
"Habinnas, you were there, I think, I'll leave it to you; didn't he say
--'You took your wife out of a whore-house'? you're as lucky in your
friends, too, no one ever repays your favor with another, you own broad
estates, you nourish a viper under your wing, and--why shouldn't I tell
it--I still have thirty years, four months, and two days to live! I'll
also come into another bequest shortly. That's what my horoscope tells
me. If I can extend my boundaries so as to join Apulia, I'll think I've
amounted to something in this life! I built this house with Mercury on
the job, anyhow; it was a hovel, as you know, it's a palace now! Four
dining-rooms, twenty bed-rooms, two marble colonnades, a store-room
upstairs, a bed-room where I sleep myself, a sitting-room for this viper,
a very good room for the porter, a guest-chamber for visitors. As a
matter of fact, Scaurus, when he was here, would stay nowhere else,
although he has a family place on the seashore. I'll show you many other
things, too, in a jiffy; believe me, if you have an as, you'll be rated
at what you have. So your humble servant, who was a frog, is now a king.
Stychus, bring out my funereal vestments while we wait, the ones I'll be
carried out in, some perfume, too, and a draught of the wine in that jar,
I mean the kind I intend to have my bones washed in."
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-EIGHTH.
It was not long before Stychus brought a white shroud and a
purple-bordered toga into the dining-room, and Trimalchio requested us
to feel them and see if they were pure wool. Then, with a smile, "Take
care, Stychus, that the mice don't get at these things and gnaw them, or
the moths either. I'll burn you alive if they do. I want to be carried
out in all my glory so all the people will wish me well." Then, opening
a jar of nard, he had us all anointed. "I hope I'll enjoy this as well
when I'm dead," he remarked, "as I do while I'm alive." He then ordered
wine to be poured into the punch-bowl. "Pretend," said he, "that you're
invited to my funeral feast." The thing had grown positively
nauseating, when Trimalchio, beastly drunk by now, bethought himself of
a new and singular diversion and ordered some horn-blowers brought into
the dining-room. Then, propped up by many cushions, he stretched
himself out upon the couch. "Let on that I'm dead," said he, "and say
something nice about me." The horn-blowers sounded off a loud funeral
march together, and one in particular, a slave belonging to an
undertaker, made such a fanfare that he roused the whole neighborhood,
and the watch, which was patrolling the vicinity, thinking Trimalchio's
house was afire, suddenly smashed in the door and rushed in with their
water and axes, as is their right, raising a rumpus all their own. We
availed ourselves of this happy circumstance and, leaving Agamemnon in
the lurch, we took to our heels, as though we were running away from a
real conflagration.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Affairs start to go wrong, your friends will stand from under
Doctor's not good for anything except for a consolation
Everybody's business is nobody's business
He can teach you more than he knows himself
Learning's a fine thing, and a trade won't starve
Men are lions at home and foxes abroad
No one can show a dead man a good time
The loser's always the winner in arguments
Too many doctors did away with him
We know that you're only a fool with a lot of learning
Whenever you learn a thing, it's yours
Believes, on the spot, every tale
You can spot a louse on someone else