“What is the matter, oh! boon companion from the North? Are you suffering from apoplexy? or do you wish to become a mathematician?[243] Why are you staring so dolefully up at the Pleiades?”
“Ah! sweet mistress—what is it the Greek sage says? ‘All things flow away!’[244] I too am flowing away. I do not know how I feel.”
“The wine-cup could answer that perhaps,” suggested Lucilia.
“No indeed—my feeble constitution to be sure—and that Caecubum was excellent. Perhaps it has flowed through all my limbs—but with all respect be it said, I am used to that.—And a sense of propriety—but you see, mistress, I cannot stir from the spot, and at the same time—oh no! it is not the wine, for I feel full of lofty ideas; my head is clear—uplifted, I might say, to Olympian heights—like Pelion piled on Ossa. Oh fair lady! you who are kindness itself, allow me to ask you one question...!”
“Speak, you shameless toper; but first sit down, for I foresee the moment when, if you do not, the chair will slide away on the polished pavement and you will fall on the top of it.”
“You are right, mistress—and it is all in my knees! my miserable legs—you are very right, the pavement is slippery. Why are pavements so polished, I wonder? Very well, then I will sit down. Excuse me if I seem to have some difficulty in doing so.—The gods have doomed the fat to labor and sweat.—There, now I am seated.”
“By Lyaeus,[245] but you are a scandal! Here, even here, in the house of Cinna, where temperance reigns supreme....”
“Temperance is good—I knew that long ago, fair Lucilia.—But now, lend me your ear. Who—who—was that magnificent creature—that splendidly-developed woman who sat at the end, quite at the bottom of the table, not far from your worthy—your—what is her name—Baucis. She wore a brown dress—an elegant bracelet clasped her arm....”
“Who can you mean?” asked Lucilia, looking round her; Herodianus also looked about.
“There, there she is,” he whispered rapturously: “She is talking to Ulpius Trajanus. Ye gods! what a form! what grace and dignity!”