There was a silence for several minutes; then Seso began to speak.
“Timon, it is very annoying of you to interrupt at the very beginning the only serious conversation of which the subject is capable of interesting us. At any rate, let Naukretes speak, since you are so spiteful.”
“What shall I say about love?” answered the Guest par excellence. “It is the name given to sorrow to console those who suffer. There are only two ways of being unhappy: either we desire what we have not, or we possess what we desired. Love begins with the first, and comes to an end with the second, in the most lamentable state, that is to say, as soon as it succeeds. May the gods preserve us from love!”
“But to possess unexpectedly,” said Philodemos, smiling; “is not that true felicity?”
“What a rarity!”
“Not at all, if one is careful. Listen to me, Naukrates: not to desire, but to act in such a way that the opportunity offers itself; not to love, but to cherish from a distance certain well-chosen women for whom one feels one might have a taste in the long run, if chance and circumstances combined to throw them into one’s arms; never to adorn a woman with qualities one wants her to have, or with beauties of which she makes a mystery, but always to take the insipid for granted in order to be astonished by the exquisite. Is not this the best advice a sage can give to lovers? They only have lived happily who, in the course of their dear existences, have been wise enough occasionally to reserve for themselves the priceless purity of unforeseen joys.”
The second course was drawing to a close. There had been pheasants, attagas, a magnificent blue and red porphyris, and a swan with all its feathers, the cooking of which had been spread over forty-eight hours so as not to burn its wings. Upon curved plates one saw phlexids, pelicans, a white peacock which seemed to be sitting on a dozen and a half of roast and stuffed spermologues; in a word, enough food to feed a hundred persons on the fragments left behind after the choice pieces had been set aside. But all this was nothing compared with the last dish.
This chef-d’œuvre (such a work of art had not been seen for many a long day at Alexandria) was a young pig, of which one half had been roasted and the other boiled. It was impossible to distinguish the wound which had provoked its death, or by what means its belly had been stuffed with everything it contained. It was stuffed with round quails, chicken breasts, field-larks, succulent sauces, and slices of vulva and mince-meat. The presence of all these things in an animal apparently intact seemed inexplicable.
The guests uttered an unanimous cry of admiration, and Faustina asked for the recipe. Phrasilas smilingly delivered himself of sententious metaphorical maxims; Philodemos improvised a distich in which the word χοῖρος was taken alternately in both senses. This made Seso, already drunk, laugh till the tears flowed, but Bacchis having given the order to pour seven rare wines into seven cups for the use of each guest, the conversation strayed.