The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (61 page)

The talk was passing back and forth in this way when Trimalchio returned, and, after wiping his forehead, washed his hands in perfumed water. Then, after a moment or two of delay, he said:

“You will excuse me, my friends, but my stomach for a good many days has been out of sorts, and the doctors don’t know where they are at. However, I have been helped by pomegranate rind and a mixture of pitch and vinegar. I trust that my internal economy will soon feel ashamed of itself. Moreover there is a rumbling in my stomach so that you would imagine it to be a bull. And so if any of you wish to go out don’t be bashful. You’ll find all the conveniences. Flatulence goes to the head and kicks up a disturbance all through the body. I know of a good many persons who have died because they were too modest to speak the truth.”

We thanked him for his kind generosity and concealed our laughter by taking numerous drinks. We had no idea, after all the rich things already eaten, that we hadn’t yet, as they say, reached the top of the hill; but now, as soon as the table had been cleared off to the sound of music, three white swine were brought into the dining-room, decorated with muzzles and little bells. The slave who announced the guests said that one of the pigs was two years old, another three years old, and a third already six years old. I thought that rope dancers were coming in and that the pigs, as is often the case in the side-shows, were going to perform some remarkable tricks. But Trimalchio, putting an end to our suspense, said:

“Which of these pigs would you like to have served up at once on the table? Country cooks can prepare a fowl or a piece of beef and other trifles of that sort, but my cooks are accustomed to serve up whole calves boiledl”

Immediately he had the cook summoned; and not waiting for us to make a choice, he ordered the oldest pig to be slaughtered. Then he asked the slave in a loud voice:

“Were you purchased for me,” said Trimalchio, “or born on my estate?”

“Neither,” replied the cook. “I was left to you in Pansa’s will.”

“See then,” said Trimalchio, “that you set the pig before us in good style. If you don‘t, I shall have you transferred to the gang of running footmen.”

So the cook, after receiving this hint of his master’s power, led the pig away to the kitchen. Trimalchio, looking at us with a genial countenance, then remarked:

“If the wine doesn’t suit you, I’ll have it changed; but you really must relish it. Thank God, I don’t have to buy it; but everything that can make your mouth water is now produced on that estate of mine just outside the city, which I myself have not yet seen. It is said to be near Tarracina and Tarentum. I have a notion to add Sicily to my estates, so that when I take it into my head to go to Africa, I can sail between my own possessions. But tell me, Agamemnon, what rhetorical debate did you take part in today? For even though I don’t plead cases myself, I have, nevertheless, some learning for home use. You are not to suppose that I think little of study. I have two libraries, one in Greek and one in Latin. So tell me, please, the subject of your debate.”

“The subject,” said Agamemnon, “is this: ‘A poor man and a rich man were enemies—’”

“What on earth is a poor man?” interrupted Trimalchio.

“Oh, how witty!” cried out Agamemnon; and he went on to explain the subject of his argument. But Trimalchio at once interrupted him again and said:

“If all this really happened, there is no question to debate. If it didn’t really happen, then there is nothing in it at all.”

We received these and other sallies of his with the most effusive compliments.

“Tell me,” said he, “my dear Agamemnon, do you remember the Twelve Labours of Hercules, or the story of Ulysses, and how the Cyclops twisted his thumb after he had been turned into a pig? When I was a boy I used to read these things in Homer; and with my own eyes I once saw the Sibyl at Cumæ hanging in a great jar, and when the young men asked her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she said, ‘I want to die.’”

He had not yet finished blowing, when a tray was placed upon the table containing an immense pig. We fell to wondering at the rapidity with which it had been cooked; for we vowed that not even a barnyard fowl could have been thoroughly done in so short a time; and we wondered all the more because the pig seemed to us to be considerably larger than the live pig had appeared to be a little while before. Then Trimalchio, looking more and more intently at it, said:

“What? What? Hasn’t this pig been drawn? No, by Jove, it hasn‘t! Just call the cook in.”

Then when the cook, looking very much disconcerted, came to the table and admitted that he had forgotten to draw the pig, Trimalchio called out:

“What? Forgotten? One would imagine that this fellow had never handled pepper and salt. Strip him!”

Immediately the cook was stripped of his outer garments, and took his place in a dejected way between two slaves whose duty it was to administer a flogging. All the guests began to beg him off and said:

“This sort of thing often happens. We beg you, let him off, and if he should ever do it again, none of us will plead for him.”

I, however, being a man of unflinching sternness, could not restrain myself, but putting my mouth to Agamemnon’s ear, said:

“Really, this must be a most worthless slave. Could any one really forget to draw a pig? By Jove, I wouldn’t forgive him if he had forgotten to clean even a fish.”

But not so Trimalchio, whose countenance relaxed into a genial expression as he said:

“Well, since your memory is so bad, just draw him here in our presence.”

So the cook put on his tunic and, seizing his knife, cut into the pig’s stomach this way and that way with a careful hand. Instantly, after the cuts had been made and by reason of the pressure from within, sausages of various kinds came tumbling out. The whole company broke out into spontaneous applause and called out:

“Good for Gaius!”

The cook was rewarded with a drink, a silver crown, and a cup on a salver of Corinthian bronze. As Agamemnon began to examine this salver very closely, Trimalchio remarked:

“I’m the only person who has genuine Corinthian bronze.”

I imagined that, in accordance with the rest of his conceit, he was going to say that his bronze had been brought to him from Corinth; but he gave the thing a better turn than that by saying:

“Perhaps you would like to know why I’m the only man who has true Corinthian bronze. Well, it’s because the bronze-dealer from whom I buy it is called Corinthus; for how can anything be Corinthian unless one has a Corinthus to make it? And lest you imagine that I’m an ignorant person, I’ll let you know that I understand how Corinthian bronze first came to be made. When Troy was taken, Hannibal, a clever fellow, and a sly dog, had all the bronze and gold and silver statues heaped up into one pile and built a fire under them. The various metals all melted down into a single one, and then from the blended mass the artisans took metal and made dishes, and plates, and statuettes. That’s the way that Corinthian bronze was first produced—a single metal made out of all the others and itself neither one nor the other. You will excuse me for what I am going to say, but for my part I prefer vessels of glass, for they have no smell to them. Indeed, if they couldn’t be broken, I should prefer them even to gold. But now, of course, they’re cheap. Nevertheless, there once lived an artisan who made a glass bottle that couldn’t possibly be broken. He gained admission to the emperor’s presence with his invention; and making as if to hand it over to Cæsar, he let it fall on the stone floor. Cæsar naturally supposed that it had been broken, but the artisan picked up the bottle from the floor, and, lo and behold, it was simply dented like a vessel of bronze. Then, taking a little hammer from his pocket, he straightened the bottle out with perfect ease. He naturally thought that he had made a great hit, especially after Cæsar asked him:

“‘Does any one else understand this manner of making glass?’

“Listen now: when the workman had said no, Cæsar ordered him to be beheaded, because if the secret of this manufacture should leak out, gold would become as cheap as dirt. I’m a good deal of a connoisseur in silver. I have a hundred large goblets, more or less, made of that metal, on which Cassandra is represented as killing her sons, and the dead boys are depicted so vividly that you would think they were alive. I have also a thousand sacrificial bowls which Mummius left to my former owner, and on which is shown Dædalus shutting up Niobe in the Trojan Horse. I have, too, the battles of Hermeros and of Petrais depicted on drinking-cups, all of them very heavy. In fact, I wouldn’t sell my special knowledge for any money.”

While he was saying this, a boy let a cup fall on the floor. Looking at him, Trimalchio said:

“Be off quickly and commit suicide, for you’re a fool!”

Immediately the boy, with quivering lip, began to beg. Trimalchio asked:

“Why do you beg of me as though I had done anything to you? I advise you to beg yourself not to be such a fool.”

At length, however, persuaded by us, he let off the boy, who at once ran about the table, while Trimalchio exclaimed:

“Out with the water and in with the wine!”

We applauded his witty geniality, and especially did Agamemnon applaud it, for he knew by what sort of services he would get another invitation to dinner. Trimalchio, after having been duly flattered, fell to drinking merrily, and now being nearly drunk, he said:

“Aren’t any of you going to ask my Fortunata to dance for you? Believe me, no one can do the coochee coochee better than she.”

And spreading his hands above his head, he gave us an imitation of Syrus, the actor, while all his slaves droned out together:

“Well done, by Jove! Well done!”

A troupe immediately came in, clattering their shields and spears. Trimalchio sat up on his couch, and while the Homeric actors in a pompous fashion began a dialogue in Greek verse, he read a book aloud in Latin with a singsong tone of voice. Presently, when the rest had become silent, he said:

“Do you know what play they’re acting? Diomede and Ganymede were two brothers. Their sister was Helen. Agamemnon carried her off and put a deer in her place for Diana, and so now Homer explains how the Trojans and the Parentines are waging war. Agamemnon, you must know, came off victor and gave his daughter Iphigenia to be the wife of Achilles. Thereupon Ajax went mad, and presently now will show us the denouement.”

As Trimalchio said this, the Homeric actors set up a shout, and while the slaves bustled about, a boiled calf was brought on in an enormous dish and with a helmet placed upon it. The actor who took the part of Ajax followed with a drawn sword, fell upon it as though he were mad, and hacking this way and that he cut up the calf and offered the bits to us on the point of his sword, to our great surprise.

We had no time to admire these elegant proceedings, for all of a sudden the ceiling of the room began to rumble and the whole dining-room shook. In consternation I jumped up, fearing lest some acrobat should come down through the roof; and all the other guests in surprise looked upward as though they expected some miracle from heaven. But lo and behold! the panels of the ceiling slid apart, and suddenly a great hoop as though shaken off from a hogshead was let down, having gold crowns with jars of perfume hanging about its entire circumference. These things we were invited to accept as keepsakes, and presently a tray was set before us full of cakes with an image of Priapus as a centre-piece made of confectionery and holding in its generous bosom apples of every sort and grapes, in the usual fashion, as being the god of gardens. We eagerly snatched at this magnificent display, and suddenly renewed our mirth at discovering a novel trick; for all the cakes and all the apples, when pressed the least bit, squirted forth saffron-water into our faces. Thinking that there was something of a religious turn to a course that was so suggestive of divine worship, we all rose up together and pronounced the formula, “Success to Augustus, Father of his Country!” But some of us, even after this solemn act, snatched up the apples and filled our napkins with them to carry away—a thing which I did myself, for I thought that I could not heap up enough presents in Giton’s lap.

While this was going on, three slaves dressed in white tunics entered, two of whom placed images of the household gods upon the table, and the other one carrying around a bowl of wine called out: “God bless us all!” Trimalchio told us that one image was the image of the God of Business, the second the image of the God of Luck, and the third the image of the God of Gain. There was a very striking bust of Trimalchio also, and as everybody else kissed it, I was ashamed not to do the same.

Presently, after all of us had invoked health and happiness for ourselves, Trimalchio, looking in the direction of Niceros, said:

“You used to be better dinner-company. Somehow or other now, though, you’re absolutely mum and don’t open your head. I beg you, if you wish to oblige me, tell me some of your experiences.”