But his passion for dancing was interrupted at this stage by a stenographer who read aloud, as if he were reading the public records, “On the seventh of the Kalends of July, on Trimalchio’s estates near Cumae, were born thirty boys and forty girls: five hundred pecks of wheat were taken from the threshing floors and stored in the granaries: five hundred oxen were put to yoke: the slave Mithridates was crucified on the same date for cursing the genius of our master, Gaius: on said date ten million sesterces were returned to the vaults as no sound investment could be found: on said date, a fire broke out in the gardens at Pompeii, said fire originating in the house of Nasta, the bailiff.” “What’s that?” demanded Trimalchio. “When were the gardens at Pompeii bought for me?” “Why, last year,” answered the stenographer, “for that reason the item has not appeared in the accounts.” Trimalchio flew into a rage at this. “If I’m not told within six months of any real estate that’s bought for me,” he shouted, “I forbid it’s being carried to my account at all!” Next, the edicts of his aediles were read aloud, and the wills of some of his foresters in which Trimalchio was disinherited by a codicil, then the names of his bailiffs, and that of a freedwoman who had been repudiated by a night watchman, after she had been caught in bed with a bath attendant, that of a porter banished to Baioe, a steward who was standing trial, and lastly the report of a decision rendered in the matter of a lawsuit, between some valets. When this was over with, some rope dancers came in and a very boresome fool stood holding a ladder, ordering his boy to dance from rung to rung, and finally at the top, all this to the music of popular airs; then the boy was compelled to jump through blazing hoops while grasping a huge wine jar with his teeth. Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks, remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure, rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing but nonsense. “I bought a company of comedians,” he went on, “but I preferred for them to put on Atellane farces, and I ordered my flute-player to play Latin airs only.”
CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FOURTH.
While our noble Gaius was still talking away, the boy slipped and fell, alighting upon Trimalchio’s arm. The whole household cried out, as did also the guests, not that they bore such a coarse fellow any good will, as they would gladly have seen his neck broken, but because such an unlucky ending to the dinner might make it necessary for them to go into mourning over a total stranger. As for Trimalchio, he groaned heavily and bent over his arm as though it had been injured: doctors flocked around him, and Fortunata was among the very first, her hair was streaming and she held a cup in her hand and screamed out her grief and unhappiness. As for the boy who had fallen, he was crawling at our feet, imploring pardon. I was uneasy for fear his prayers would lead up to some ridiculous theatrical climax, for I had not yet been able to forget that cook who had forgotten to bowel that hog, and so, for this reason, I began to scan the whole dining-room very closely, to see if an automaton would come out through the wall; and all the more so as a slave was beaten for having bound up his master’s bruised arm in white wool instead of purple. Nor was my suspicion unjustified, for in place of punishment, Trimalchio ordered that the boy be freed, so that no one could say that so exalted a personage had been injured by a slave.
CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIFTH.
We applauded his action and engaged in a discussion upon the instability of human affairs, which many took sides. “A good reason,” declared Trimalchio, “why such an occasion shouldn’t slip by without an epigram.” He called for his tablets at once, and after racking his brains for a little while, he got off the following:
The unexpected will turn up;
Our whole lives Fortune bungles up.
Falernian, boy, hand round the cup.
This epigram led up to a discussion of the poets, and for a long time, the greatest praise was bestowed upon Mopsus the Thracian, until Trimalchio broke in with: “Professor, I wish you’d tell me how you’d compare Cicero and Publilius. I’m of the opinion that the first was the more eloquent, but that the last moralizes more beautifully, for what can excel these lines?
Insatiable luxury crumbles the walls of war;
To satiate gluttony, peacocks in coops are brought
Arrayed in gold plumage like Babylon tapestry rich.
Numidian guinea-fowls, capons, all perish for thee:
And even the wandering stork, welcome guest that he is,
The emblem of sacred maternity, slender of leg
And gloctoring exile from winter, herald of spring,
Still, finds his last nest in the--cauldron of gluttony base.
India surrenders her pearls; and what mean they to thee?
That thy wife decked with sea-spoils adorning her breast and her head
On the couch of a stranger lies lifting adulterous legs?
The emerald green, the glass bauble, what mean they to thee?
Or the fire of the ruby? Except that pure chastity shine
From the depth of the jewels: in garments of woven wind clad
Our brides might as well take their stand, their game naked to stalk,
As seek it in gossamer tissue transparent as air.”
CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SIXTH.
“What should we say was the hardest calling, after literature?” he asked. “That of the doctor or that of the money-changer, I would say: the doctor, because he has to know what poor devils have got in their insides, and when the fever’s due: but I hate them like the devil, for my part, because they’re always ordering me on a diet of duck soup: and the money-changer’s, because he’s got to be able to see the silver through the copper plating. When we come to the dumb beasts, the oxen and sheep are the hardest worked, the oxen, thanks to whose labor we have bread to chew on, the sheep, because their wool tricks us out so fine. It’s the greatest outrage under the sun for people to eat mutton and then wear a tunic. Then there’s the bee: in my opinion, they’re divine insects because they puke honey, though there are folks that claim that they bring it from Jupiter, and that’s the reason they sting, too, for wherever you find a sweet, you’ll find a bitter too.” He was just putting the philosophers out of business when lottery tickets were passed around in a cup. A slave boy assigned to that duty read aloud the names of the souvenirs: “Silver s--ham,” a ham was brought in with some silver vinegar cruets on top of it; “cervical"--something soft for the neck--a piece of the cervix--neck--of a sheep was brought in; “serisapia"--after wit--“and contumelia"--insult--we were given must wafers and an apple-melon--and a phallus--contus--; “porri"--leeks--“and persica,” he picked up a whip and a knife; “passeres"--sparrows” and a fly--trap,” the answer was raisins--uva passa--and Attic honey; “cenatoria"--a dinner toga--“and forensia"--business dress--he handed out a piece of meat--suggestive of dinner--and a note-book--suggestive of business--; “canale"--chased by a dog--“and pedale"--pertaining to the foot--, a hare and a slipper were brought out; “lamphrey"--murena--“and a letter,” he held up a mouse--mus--and a frog--rana--tied together, and a bundle of beet--beta--the Greek letter beta--. We laughed long and loud, there were a thousand of these jokes, more or less, which have now escaped my memory.