The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (62 page)

Niceros, flattered by the notice of his friend, said:

“May I never make another farthing if I am not bursting with joy to see you in such good form; so let’s be as happy as we can, though I am awfully afraid of these learned persons present for fear they should laugh at me. However, that’s their affair. I’ll spin my yarn all the same; for what harm does any one do me who laughs at me? It’s a great deal better to be laughed at, than to be laughed down.”

And then he began the following story:

“When I was still a slave I used to live in a little street where Gavilla lives now. At that time, as the gods would have it, I fell in love with the wife of Terence, the innkeeper. You must have known her—her name was Melissa, a native of Tarentum, and a very kissable girl, too. Yet there wasn’t anything wrong in my love for her, but I just liked her because she had such nice ways. Whatever I asked of her she gave me. If she made a penny she gave me half of it, and whatever I had I turned over to her to keep for me, and never was cheated. As it happened, her husband died at his place in the country and so I tried by hook and by crook to get to her, for you know a friend in need is a friend indeed. As chance would have it, my master had gone to Capua to look after some wares; and so, seizing the opportunity, I asked a man who was staying with us to go with me as far as the fifth milestone. He was a soldier, as bold as hell. We set off about cock-crow, while the moon was still shining as bright as midday. At last we came to a cemetery and my companion went off among the tombstones, while I took a rest, humming a tune and counting the monuments. Presently, when I looked at my companion, he had undressed and had put all his clothes by the roadside. My heart was in my mouth, and I sat there like a dead man; but he walked around his clothes and all of a sudden was turned into a wolf. Now don’t imagine that I’m fooling you, for I wouldn’t tell any lies for the world. But, as I was going on to say just now, he was turned into a wolf, and began to howl, and then ran off into the woods. At first I didn’t know where I was at, but when I went up to his clothes to pick them up—lo and behold, they had all been turned into stone! Well, I was about ready to die of fright, but I drew my sword and all along the road I cut and thrust at every shadow until I reached my friend’s house. When I entered as pale as a ghost I almost fainted. The sweat was running down my crotch, my eyes were fixed, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I was brought to. Melissa wondered at me to think that I was out so late and she said, ‘If you’d only come sooner you might have been of some help to us; for a wolf has just entered the grounds and attacked our flocks and made them bleed like a butcher. He didn’t get off unhurt, however, for one of my slaves stuck him in the neck with a spear.’ After I had heard this I couldn’t close my eyes; but as soon as it was bright daylight, I hurried home like a plundered pedlar; and when I came to the place where the clothes had been turned into stone I found nothing there but a pool of blood. But when I reached home, there lay my friend the soldier, in his bed like a stuck pig with the doctor putting a plaster on his neck. Then I knew that he was a werewolf, and from that day on I couldn’t have eaten a mouthful of bread with him even if you had killed me. I leave it to others to say what they think of this; but if I’ve lied to you I hope your honours will have nothing more whatever to do with me.”

After we had all expressed our wonder, Trimalchio remarked:

“If you’ll believe me, my hair stood on end, because I know that Niceros never tells any idle yams, but he’s a straightforward fellow, and by no means fond of hearing himself talk. Now I’m going to tell you a frightful thing myself, as strange as an ass on the house-tops. When I was still a long-haired boy—for even from early youth I led a pretty gay life—my master’s favourite died, a regular jewel, a rare fellow, and one that could turn his hand to anything. His poor mother was mourning over him and we were all of us in a very sad state of mind, when suddenly we heard witches shrieking so that you would imagine that it was a pack of hounds chasing a hare. We had with us at that time a Cappadocian, a tall fellow, very bold and so strong that he could have picked up a mad bull. He drew his sword valiantly, rushed out of the house, and, wrapping his left arm carefully in his cloak, he thrust a hag right through the middle. We heard a groan, yet (really, I’m not lying) we couldn’t see the witches themselves. Presently, however, our man came in again and threw himself down on the bed, and—lo and behold, his body was all black and blue as though it had been scourged because, no doubt, an evil hand had touched him! Closing the door, we went on about our business, but when the mother went to embrace her son’s body, she touched it and found nothing but a dummy made of litter, with no heart, no vitals, nothing at all. So you see that the witches had swooped down on the boy and put a puppet in his place. Believe me, there
are
witches, real night hags, and they turn everything upside down. But as for this stout fellow of ours, after what had happened he never came to himself again, and after a few days he died raving crazy.”

We all expressed alike our wonder and our entire belief, and we touched the table with our lips, begging the night hags to stay in their own haunts when the time came for us to go home from dinner.

A little later, after Trimalchio had ordered the second part of the dinner to be brought in, his slaves took away all the tables and brought in new ones, sprinkling the floor with red and yellow sawdust, and also with mica ground to powder, a thing which I had never before seen done. Straightway Trimalchio observed:

“I could be perfectly satisfied myself with this course alone, for you now have really a second dinner. Still, if there’s anything else especially choice, bring it on.”

Meanwhile an Alexandrian slave who was serving the hot drinks, began to imitate the song of the nightingale, Trimalchio calling out from time to time:

“Change your tune!” and then, lo and behold, came another diversion; for the slave who sat at Habinnas’s feet, having got the hint, I imagine, from his master, sung out all of a sudden in a droning voice these lines from the
Æneid:

A more excruciating sound never struck my ears; for, apart from the crescendo and diminuendo of his barbarous rendering, he interpolated other lines, so that for the first time I found even Virgil tiresome. When he had finished, however, Habinnas applauded him, remarking:

“He never had to learn these things, but I educated him up to it by sending him out to listen to the performances in the street, with the result that he hasn’t his match at imitating the mule-drivers and the mountebanks. He’s awfully clever, for he can take the part of a cobbler, or a cook, or a baker; in fact, he is a perfect Jack-of-all-trades. To be sure, he has two faults, apart from which he is really out of sight—he has been circumcised and he snores, for as to the fact that he’s squint-eyed, I don’t mind that, for they say that Venus herself has a cast in her eyes. These two faults, however, have this result: he is never silent and he keeps an eye on everything. I paid three hundred denarii for him.”

Scintilla interrupted him in the midst of his talk, observing:

“Yes, but you don’t tell all the accomplishments of this wretched slave. He is a pimp, and I shall see that he gets branded for it.”

Trimalchio laughed at this.

“I recognize in him,” said he, “a real Cappadocian. He’s very good to himself, and, by Jove! I praise him for it, for this is the only way for a man to do. But don’t be jealous, Scintilla. Depend upon it, I understand you both. As sure as I’m alive, I used in my time to be
aux petits soins
with my master’s wife, so that even my master had a sort of inkling of it, and that’s why he had me transferred to the stewardship of his country place. But least said, soonest mended.”

On this the miserable slave, precisely as though he had received high praise, pulled a clay lamp out of his pocket, and for half an hour or more gave us an imitation of trumpeters, Habinnas chiming in, flipping his lower lip with his finger. At last the slave sat up in the midst of us and gave us an imitation of flute-players with their instruments, and later, putting on his cloak and taking a whip, he took the part of mule-drivers, until Habinnas called him and kissed him and offered him a drink, saying:

“Bully for you, Massa! I’m going to give you a pair of brogans!”

These tiresome proceedings would never have come to an end had not a dessert been brought in, consisting of thrushes made of pastry and stuffed with nuts and raisins. Following these came quinces stuck full of thorns so as to represent hedgehogs. One could have stood these things, had not the disgusting abundance of the course made us prefer to die of hunger; for after there had been set before us, as we supposed, a fat goose surrounded by fish and every kind of birds, Trimalchio remarked:

“My friends, whatever you see set before you here has been made out of one single kind of material.”

Thereupon, I, being a man of great insight, immediately understood what it was, as I thought, and looking at Agamemnon I said:

“I shouldn’t be surprised if all these things were made of filth, or at any rate, out of mud, for I have seen at Rome at the time of the Saturnalia the very same thing in the way of a dinner.”

But before I had finished speaking, Trimalchio observed:

“As I hope to grow in wealth and lose in flesh, this cook of mine made all these things out of pork. There cannot be a more valuable fellow to have around than he. Should he take a fancy to do so, he could make you fish out of a sow’s paunch, and pigeon out of bacon, a turtle-dove out of ham, and a chicken out of a knuckle of beef. And that’s why, by a happy thought of mine, I have given him a first rate name, for he is called Dædalus; and because he has his wits about him I brought him from Rome a present of some knives made of Noric steel.”

These he at once ordered to be brought out, and after we had looked at them he expressed his admiration. He even made us test the edges of the knives on our cheeks.

All of a sudden there came in two slaves, who had been quarrelling apparently at the town-pump; for they still carried their water-jars on their necks. While Trimalchio was hearing the case between these two brawlers, neither one of them accepted his decision, but each broke the other’s water-jar with a club. In our surprise at the rudeness of the drunken pair, we fixed our eyes on them as they quarrelled, and I noted that out of the broken vessels came tumbling oysters and scallops which a slave collected in a dish and carried around. The clever cook matched these dainties, for he had served up snails on a silver gridiron, singing all the time himself with a quavering and disagreeable voice.

After some trifling dainties had been consumed, Trimalchio, looking around at the servants, said:

“Well, haven’t you had your dinner yet? Go and get it, and let other servants come here and wait upon us.”

Directly, then, another set came in, those who went out exclaiming, “Farewell, Gaius!” and those who came in saluting him with, “Hail, Gaius!” Soon after, for the first time, our mirth was checked; for when a young slave who was by no means bad looking had come in among the new servants, Trimalchio pounced upon him and began to kiss him for a long time. Whereupon Fortunata, in order to prove her equal right in the household, began to abuse Trimalchio, styling him the scum of the earth and a disgraceful person. At last she called him a dog. Taking offence at this vituperation, Trimalchio threw a cup in her face, and she, as though she had lost an eye, shrieked and placed her trembling hands before her face. Scintilla also was very much disturbed and hid the cowering woman in her robe. A slave at once in an officious maner placed a cold jug against her cheek leaning upon which Fortunata began to moan and cry.

On his side Trimalchio exclaimed:

“How now? The jade doesn’t remember that I took her off the stage and made an honest woman of her; she puffs herself up like a frog and fouls her own nest —a faggot and not a lady. But, as the saying goes, one who was born in a garret doesn’t fit a palace. So help me gracious, I’ll see that this clodhopping tragedy queen is brought up with a round turn. I, when I was only a poor devil, had a chance to marry a fortune of ten million sesterces, and you know I’m not lying about it. Agatho, who sold perfume to a lady who lived next door, took me aside and said: ‘I beg you not to let your race perish from the earth’; but just because I was a good fellow and didn’t want to seem fickle, I fastened this ball-and-chain to my leg. Very well, now, I’ll teach you to claw me, and just to show you on the spot what you’ve brought upon yourself, I order you, Habinnas, not to put her statue on my tomb, lest even after my death I should be having scraps with her. In fact, to teach her how severe I can be, I forbid her to kiss me when I am dead.”