No More Learning

[214] Cf. Virg. , Æn. , iv. , 261.

[215] Nero, on his way to Greece, fell in at Beneventum with one
Vatinius, "Sutrinæ tabernæ alumnus," whom he took first as his buffoon,
and afterward as his confidant. Tac. , Ann. , xv. , 34. Cf. Martial, xiv. ,
Ep. 96.

[216] _Sulphura. _ Cf. Mart. , i. , Ep. 43, Qui pallentia sulphurata
fractis permutat vitreis. Vid. x. , 3, Quæ sulphurata nolit empta
ramento Vatiniorum proxeneta fractorum. Compare the "Bellarmines" of
mediæval pottery and the Flemish "Graybeards. "

[217] _Pruinis. _ "Neronis principis inventum est decoquere aquam,
vitroque demissam in nives refrigerare. " Plin. , xxxi. , 3.

[218] _Frivola_; properly "goods and chattels. " Cf. iii. , 198.

[219] _Artocopi. _ Cf. Xen. , An. , IV. , iv. , 21. Some read Artoptæ.

[220] This is the indignant exclamation of Trebius.

[221] _Constrictus_, or, "shrunk from having been so long out of the
sea. "

[222] _Cœna_; the Silicernium; served on the ninth day to appease the
dead. Cf. Plaut. , Pseud. , III. , ii. , 7; Aul. , II. , iv. , 45.

[223] _Vendat. _ Cf. iii. , 187. Aurelia. See Plin. , ii. , Ep. 20.

[224] _Lina. _ Cf. Virg. , Georg. , i. , 142.

[225] The pike (Lupus Tiberinus) was esteemed in exact proportion to
the distance it was caught from the common sewers of Rome. Hor. , ii. ,
Sat. ii. , 31.

[226] _Structor. _ Cf. xi. , 136.

[227] _Cacus. _ Virg. , Æn. , viii. , 264.

[228] Free Roman citizens had three names, prænomen, nomen, and
cognomen. Slaves had no prænomen. Cf. Pers. , Sat. v. , 76-82. He means
to imply that, by turning parasite, Trebius had virtually forfeited the
privileges of a free Roman.

[229] _Da Trebio. _ Cf. Suet. , Dom. , xi. , "partibus de cœnâ dignatus
est. " Xen. , Anab. , I. , ix. , 26.

[230] Virg. , Æn. , iv. , 327.

[231] _Viridem thoraca. _ Heinrich supposes this to be a mimic piece of
armor, to be worn by children playing at soldiers.

[232] _Nuces_, "walnuts;" minimas nuces, _nuts_.

[233] Cf. Tac. , Ann. , xii. , 66, 7, "Infusum cibo boletorum venenum;" it
was prepared by Locusta. Cf. Sat. i. , 71. Martial, Ep. , I. , xxi. , 4,
"Boletum qualem Claudius edit, edas. " Cf. Suet. , Nero, 33.

[234] Probably alluding to a monkey exhibited riding on a goat, and
equipped as a soldier, to amuse the Prætorian guards at their barrack
gate; or, as some think, the "recruit" himself is intended, and then
Capella is taken as a proper name.

[235] The golden bulla, hollow, and in the shape of a heart, was
borrowed from the Etruscans, and at first confined to the children of
nobles. It was afterward borne, like the "tria nomina," by all who were
free-born, till they were fifteen. The poorer citizens had it made of
leather, or some cheap material. Cf. xiv. , 5, hæres bullatus.

[236] Cf. Xen. , Anab. , I. , ix. , 26.


SATIRE VI.

I believe that while Saturn still was king, chastity lingered upon
earth, and was long seen there: when a chill cavern furnished a scanty
dwelling, and inclosed in one common shade the fire and household gods,
the cattle, and their owners. When a wife, bred on the mountains,
prepared a rustic bed with leaves and straw and the skins of the wild
beasts their neighbors; not like thee, Cynthia[237]--or thee whose
beaming eyes the death of a sparrow dimmed with tears--but bearing
breasts from which her huge infants might drink, not suck, and often
more uncivilized even than her acorn-belching husband. Since men lived
very differently then, when the world was new, and the sky but freshly
created, who, born out of the riven oak, or moulded out of clay, had no
parents.

Many traces of primæval chastity, perhaps, or some few at least, may
have existed, even under Jove; but then it was before Jove's beard was
grown; before the Greeks were yet ready to swear by another's head;
when no one feared a thief for his cabbages or apples, but lived with
garden uninclosed. Then by degrees Astræa retired to the realms above,
with chastity for her companion, and the two sisters fled together.

To violate the marriage-bed, and laugh to scorn the genius that
presides over the nuptial couch, is an ancient and a hackneyed vice,
Postumus. Every other species of iniquity the age of iron soon
produced. The silver age witnessed the first adulterers.

And yet are you preparing your marriage covenant, and the
settlement,[238] and betrothal, in our days, and are already under
the hands of the master barber, and perhaps have already given the
pledge for her finger! Well! you _used_ to be sane, at all events! You,
Postumus, going to marry! Say, what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving
you mad? Can you submit to be the slave of any woman, while so many
halters are to be had? so long as high and dizzy windows are open for
you, and the Æmilian bridge presents itself so near at hand? Or if, out
of so many ways of quitting life, none pleases you, do you not think
your present plan better, of having a stripling to sleep with you, who
lying there, reads you no curtain lectures, exacts no little presents
from you, and never complains that you are too sparing in your efforts
to please him?

But Ursidius is delighted with the Julian law[239]--he thinks of
bringing up a darling heir, nor cares to lose the fine turtledove and
bearded mullets,[240] and all the baits for legacies in the dainties of
the market. What will you believe to be impossible, if Ursidius takes a
wife? If he, of yore the most notorious of adulterers, whom the chest
of Latinus in peril of his life has so often concealed, is now going to
insert his idiot head in the nuptial halter; nay, and more than this,
is looking out for a wife possessed of the virtues of ancient days!
Haste, physicians, bore through the middle vein! What a nice man! Fall
prostrate at the threshold of Tarpeian Jove, and sacrifice to Juno a
heifer with gilded horns, if you have the rare good fortune to find a
matron with unsullied chastity. So few are there worthy to handle the
fillets of Ceres; so few, whose kisses their own fathers might not
dread. Wreathe chaplets for the door-posts, stretch thick clusters of
ivy over the threshold. Is one husband enough for Iberina? Sooner will
you prevail on her to be content with one eye. "Yet there is a great
talk of a certain damsel, living at her father's country-house! " Let
her live at Gabii as she lived in the country, or even at Fidenæ, and
I grant what you say of the influence of the paternal country-seat.
Yet who will dare assert that nothing has been achieved on mountains
or in caves? Are Jupiter and Mars grown so old. In all the public
walks can a woman be pointed out to you, that is worthy of your wish.
On all their benches do the public shows hold one that you could love
without misgivings; or one you could pick out from the rest? While
the effeminate Bathyllus is acting Leda in the ballet, Tuccia can not
contain herself, Appula whines as in the feat of love, Thymele is all
attention to the quick, the gentler, and the slow; and so Thymele,
rustic as she was before, becomes a proficient in the art. But others,
whenever the stage ornaments, packed away, get a respite, and the
courts alone are vocal (since the theatres are closed and empty, and
the Megalesian games come a long time after the plebeian), in their
melancholy handle the mask and thyrsus and drawers of Accius. Urbicus
provokes a laugh by his personification of Autonoe in the Atellan
farce. Ælia, being poor, is in love with him. For others, the fibula
of the comic actor is unbuckled for a large sum. Some women prevent
Chrysogonus from having voice to sing. Hispulla delights in a tragic
actor. Do you expect then that the worthy Quintilianus will be the
object of their love? You take a wife by whom Echion the harper, or
Glaphyrus, or Ambrosius the choral flute-player, will become a father.
Let us erect long lines of scaffolding along the narrow streets. Let
the door-posts and the gate be decorated with a huge bay, that beneath
the canopy inlaid with tortoise-shell,[241] thy infant, Lentulus,
supposed to be sprung from a noble sire, may be the counterpart of the
Mirmillo Euryalus.

Hippia, though wife to a senator, accompanied a gladiator to Pharos
and the Nile, and the infamous walls of Lagos. [242] Even Canopus
itself reprobated the immorality of the imperial city. She, forgetful
of her home, her husband, and her sister, showed no concern for her
native land, or, vile wretch as she was, her weeping children, and,
to amaze you even more, quitted the shows and Paris. But though when
a babe she had been pillowed in great luxury, in the down of her
father's mansion, and a cradle of richest workmanship, she despised
the perils of the sea. Her good name she had long before despised--the
loss of which, among the soft cushions of ladies, is very cheaply
held. Therefore with undaunted breast she faced the Tuscan waves and
wide-resounding Ionian Sea, though the sea was so often to be changed.
If the cause of the peril be reasonable and creditable, then they are
alarmed--their coward hearts are chilled with icy fear--they can not
support themselves on their trembling feet. They show a dauntless
spirit in those things which they basely dare. If it is their husband
that bids them, it is a great hardship to go on board ship. Then the
bilgewater is insufferable! the skies spin round them! She that follows
her adulterer has no qualms. The one is sick all over her husband. The
other dines among the sailors and walks the quarter-deck, and delights
in handling the hard ropes. And yet what was the beauty that inflamed,
what the prime of life that captivated Hippia? What was it she saw in
him to compensate her for being nicknamed the fencer's whore? For the
darling Sergius had now begun to shave his throat; and badly wounded
in the arm to anticipate his discharge. Besides, he had many things to
disfigure his face, as for instance--he was galled with his helmet, and
had a huge wen between his nostrils, and acrid rheum forever trickling
from his eye.
But then he was a gladiator! It is this that makes them
beautiful as Hyacinthus! It was this she preferred to her children and
her native land, her sister and her husband. It is the steel they are
enamored of. This very same Sergius, if discharged from the arena,
would begin to be Veiento in her eyes.

Do you feel an interest in a private house, in a Hippia's acts? Turn
your eyes to the rivals of the gods! Hear what Claudius had to endure.
As soon as his wife perceived he was asleep, this imperial harlot, that
dared prefer a coarse mattress to the royal bed, took her hood she
wore by nights, quitted the palace with but a single attendant, but
with a yellow tire concealing her black hair; entered the brothel warm
with the old patchwork quilt, and the cell vacant and appropriated to
herself. Then took her stand with naked breasts and gilded nipples,
assuming the name of Lycisca, and displayed the person of the mother of
the princely Britannicus, received all comers with caresses and asked
her compliment, and submitted to often-repeated embraces. Then when the
owner dismissed his denizens, sadly she took her leave, and (all she
could do) lingered to the last before she closed her cell; and still
raging with unsatisfied desire, tired with the toil but yet unsated,
she retired with sullied cheeks defiled, and, foul from the smoke of
lamps, bore back the odor of the stews to the pillow of the emperor.

Shall I speak of the love-philters, the incantations, the poison
mingled with the food and given to the step-son? The acts which they
commit, to which they are impelled by the imperative suggestions of
their sex,[243] are still more atrocious: those they commit through
lust are the least of their crimes. "Then, how can it be that even
by her husband's showing Cesennia is the best of wives? " She brought
him a thousand sestertia! that is the price at which he calls her
chaste. It is not with Venus' quiver that he grows thin, or with her
torch he burns; it is from that his fires are fed; from her dowry that
the arrows emanate. She has purchased her liberty: therefore, even
in her husband's presence, she may exchange signals, and answer her
love-letters. A rich wife, with a covetous husband, has all a widow's
privileges. "Why then does Sertorius burn with passion for Bibula? "
If you sift the truth, it is not the wife he is in love with, but the
face. Let a wrinkle or two make their appearance, and the shriveled
skin grow flaccid, her teeth get black, or her eyes smaller--"Pack
up your baggage," the freedman will say, "and march. You are become
offensive. You blow your nose too frequently. March! and be quick about
it! Another is coming whose nose is not so moist. " Meanwhile she is
hot and imperious, and demands of her husband shepherds and sheep from
Canusium, and elms[244] from Falernum. What a trifle is this? Then
every boy she fancies, whole droves of slaves, and whatever she has not
in her house, and her neighbor has, must be bought.

Nay, in the mid-winter month, when now the merchant Jason is shut up,
and the cottage[245] white with hoar frost detains the sailors all
equipped for their voyage, she takes huge crystalline vases,[246] and
then again myrrhine of immense size; then an adamant whose history is
well known, and whose value is enhanced by having been on Berenice's
finger. This in days of yore a barbarian king gave his incestuous
love--Agrippa to his own sister! where barefoot kings observe festal
sabbaths, and a long-established clemency grants long life to pigs.

"Is there not one, then, out of such large herds of women, that seems
to you a worthy match? " Let her be beautiful, graceful, rich, fruitful;
marshal along her porticoes her rows of ancestral statues; let her be
more chaste than any single Sabine that, with hair disheveled, brought
the war to a close; be a very phœnix upon earth, rare as a black swan;
who could tolerate a wife in whom all excellencies are concentrated! I
would rather, far rather, have a country maiden from Venusia, than you,
O Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, if along with your exalted virtues
you bring as portion of your dower a haughty and disdainful brow, and
reckon as part of your fortune the triumphs of your house! Away, I beg,
with your Hannibal and Syphax conquered in his camp, and tramp with all
your Carthage!

"Spare, I pray thee, Pæan! and thou, O goddess, lay down thine arrows!
The children are innocent. Transfix the mother herself! " So prays
Amphion. Yet Pæan bends his bow. Therefore she had to bury her herds
of children, together with their sire, while Niobe seems to herself to
be more noble than Latona's race, and moreover more fruitful even than
the white sow. What dignity of deportment, what beauty, can compensate
for your wife's always throwing her own worth in your teeth? For all
the satisfaction of this rare and chief good is destroyed, if, entirely
spoilt by haughtiness of soul, it entails more bitter than sweet. But
who is so devotedly uxorious, as not to feel a dread of her whom he
praises to the skies, and hate her seven hours out of every twelve?
There are some things, trifling indeed, and yet such as no husband can
tolerate. For what can be more sickening than the fact that no one
woman considers herself beautiful, unless instead of Tuscan she has
become a little Greek--metamorphosed from a maid of Sulmo to a "maid of
Athens. " Every thing is in Greek. (While surely it is more disgraceful
for our countrywomen not to know their mother tongue. ) In this language
they give vent to their fears, their anger, their joys and cares,
and all the inmost workings of their soul. Nay more, they kiss à la
Grecque! This in young girls you may excuse. But must thou, forsooth,
speak Greek, that hast had the wear and tear of six and eighty years?
In an old woman this language becomes immodest, when interspersed with
the wanton Ζωὴ καὶ ψυχή. You are employing in public, expressions one
might think you had just used under the counterpane. For whose passion
would not be excited by these enticing and wanton words? It has all
the force of actual touching. Yet though you pronounce them all in
more insinuating tones than even Hæmus or Carpophorus, your face, the
tell-tale of your years, makes all the feathers droop.

If you are _not_ likely to love her that is contracted and united to
you in lawful wedlock, there seems no single reason why you should
marry, nor why you should waste the wedding dinner and bride cakes[247]
which you must dispense, when their complimentary attendance is over,
to your bridal guests already well crammed; nor the present given for
the first nuptial night, when, in the well-stored dish, Dacicus[248]
and Germanicus glitters with its golden legend. If you are possessed
of such simplicity of character as to be enamored of your wife, and
your whole soul is devoted to her alone, then bow your head with
neck prepared to bear the yoke. You will find none that will spare a
man that loves her. Though she be enamored herself, she delights in
tormenting and fleecing her lover. Consequently a wife is far more
disastrous to him that is likely to prove a kind and eligible husband.
You will never be allowed to make a present without your wife's
consent. If she opposes it, you must not sell a single thing, or buy
one, against her will. She will give away your affections. That good
old friend of many long years will be shut out from that gate that saw
his first sprouting beard. [249] While pimps and trainers have free
liberty to make their own wills, and even gladiators enjoy the same
amount of privilege, you will have your will dictated to you, and find
more than one rival named as your heirs.

"Crucify that slave. " "What is the charge, to call for such a
punishment? What witness can you produce? Who gave the information?
Listen! Where man's life is at stake no deliberation can be too long. "
"Idiot! so a slave is a man then! Granted he has done nothing. I _will_
it, I _insist_ on it! Let my will stand instead of reason! "

Therefore she lords it over her husband:--but soon she quits these
realms, and seeks new empires and wears out her bridal veil. Then she
flies back, and seeks again the traces of the bed she scorned. [250] She
leaves the doors so recently adorned, the tapestry still hanging on the
house, and the branches still green upon the threshold. Thus the number
grows: thus she has her eight[251] husbands in five years. A notable
fact to record upon her tomb!

All chance of domestic happiness is hopeless while your wife's mother
is alive. She bids her exult in despoiling her husband to the utmost.
She teaches her how to write back nothing savoring of discourtesy or
inexperience to the missives of the seducer. She either balks or bribes
your spies; then, though your daughter is in rude health, calls in
Archigenes, and tosses off the bedclothes as too oppressive. Meanwhile
the adulterer, concealed apart, stands trembling with impatient
expectation. Do you expect, forsooth, that the mother will inculcate
virtuous principles, or other than she cherishes herself? It is right
profitable too for a depraved old hag to train her daughter to the same
depravity.

There is scarcely a single cause in which a woman is not engaged
in some way in fomenting the suit. If Manilia is not defendant,
she will be plaintiff. They draw up and frame bills of indictment
unassisted,[252] quite prepared to dictate even to Celsus[253] the
exordium and topics he should use.

The Tyrian Endromides[254] and the Ceroma for women who is ignorant
of? Or who has not seen the wounds of the Plastron,[255] which she
dints with unwearied foil, and attacks with her shield, and goes with
precision through her exercise? A matron most pre-eminently worthy
of the trumpet of the Floralia. Unless indeed in that breast of hers
she is plotting something deeper, and training in real earnest for
the amphitheatre. [256] What modesty can a woman show that wears a
helmet, and eschews her sex, and delights in feats of strength? And
yet, in spite of all, this virago would not wish to become a man. For
how small is our pleasure compared to theirs! Yet what a goodly array
would there be, if there were an auction of your wife's goods: belt
and gauntlets[257] and crest, and the half-armor for the left leg! Or
if she shall engage in a different way of fighting,[258] you will be
lucky indeed when your young wife sells her greaves. Yet these very
same women perspire even in their muslin; whose delicate frames even
a slip of sarcenet oppresses. See! with what a noise she makes the
home-thrusts taught her by the trainer, and what a weight of helmet
bows her down, how firmly she plants herself on her haunches, in what
a thick mass is the roll of clothes. Then smile when, laying aside
her arms, she takes her oblong vessel. Tell me, ye granddaughters of
Lepidus or blind Metellus, or Fabius Gurges, what actress ever wore a
dress like this? When would Asylus' wife cry Hah! at the Plastron?

The bed in which a wife lies is the constant scene of quarrels and
mutual recriminations. There is little chance of sleep there. Then
is she indeed bitter toward her husband, fiercer than tigress robbed
of her whelps; when, conscious of her secret guilt, she counterfeits
groans, or hates the servants, or upbraids you with some rival of her
own creation, with tears ever fruitful, ever ready at their post, and
only waiting her command in what way to flow. You believe it genuine
love. You, poor hedge-sparrow, plume yourself, and kiss off the tears!
Ah! what amorous lays, what letters would you read, if you were but to
examine the writing-case of that adulteress that counterfeits jealousy
so well!

But suppose her actually caught in the arms of a slave or knight. "Pray
suggest in this case some colorable excuse, Quintilian! " "We are at
fault! Let the lady herself speak! " "It was formerly agreed," she says,
"that you should do what you pleased, and that I also might have full
power to gratify myself. In spite of your outcry and confounding heaven
and sea, I am mortal. " Nothing is more audacious than these women when
detected. They affect resentment, and borrow courage from their very
guilt itself.

Yet should you ask whence are these unnatural prodigies, or from what
source they spring; it was their humble fortune that made the Latin
women chaste in days of yore, nor did hard toil and short nights' rest,
and hands galled and hardened[259] with the Tuscan fleece, and Hannibal
close to the city, and their husbands mounting guard at the Colline
tower, suffer their lowly roofs to be contaminated by vice. Now we are
suffering all the evils of long-continued peace. Luxury, more ruthless
than war, broods over Rome, and exacts vengeance for a conquered
world. No guilt or deed of lust is wanting, since Roman poverty has
disappeared. This was the source whence Sybaris flowed to these seven
hills, and Rhodes too, and Miletus, and Tarentum crowned with garlands,
insolent and flushed with wine!

Money, the nurse of debauchery, was the first that introduced foreign
manners, and enervating riches sapped the sinews of the age with foul
luxury. For what cares Venus in her cups? All difference of head
or tail is alike to her who at very midnight devours huge oysters,
when unguents mixed with neat Falernian foam, when she drains the
conch,[260] when from her dizziness the roof seems to reel, and the
table to rise up with the lights doubled in number. [261] Go then, and
knowing all this, doubt, if you can, with what a snort of scorn Tullia
snuffs up the air when she passes the ancient altar of Chastity; or
what Collatia says to her accomplice Maura. Here they set down their
litters at night, and bedew the very image of the goddess with copious
irrigations, while the chaste moon witnesses their abominations,[262]
over which, when morn returns, you pass on your way to visit your great
friends.

The secrets of Bona Dea are well known. When the pipe excites them, and
inflamed alike with the horn and wine, these Mænads of Priapus rush
wildly round, and whirl their locks and howl! Then, as their passions
rise, how burning is their lust, how frantic their words, when all
power of restraining their desires is lost! A prize is proposed, and
Saufeia[263] challenges the vilest of her sex, and bears off the prize.
In these games nothing is counterfeit, all is acted to the life; so
that even the aged Priam, effete from years, or Nestor himself, might
be inflamed at the sight. Then their lust admits of no delay. Then the
woman appears in all her native depravity; and by all alike is the
shout re-echoed from the whole den--"Now is the proper time. Let in
the men! " But the adulterer still sleeps; so she bids the youth put on
a female hood, and speed to the spot. If none can be found, they have
recourse to slaves. If there is no hope of slaves, they will hire some
water-carrier to come. If this fails too, and no men can be found, she
would not hesitate to descend still lower in the scale of creation.
Oh, would that our ancient rites and public worship could at least be
celebrated, uncontaminated by such pollutions as these! But even the
Moors and Indians know what singing wench produced his wares equal
in bulk to Cæsar's two Anticatos, in a place whence even a mouse,
conscious of his sex, would flee, and every picture is veiled over that
represents the other sex. Yet, even in those days, what man despised
the deity? or who had dared to ridicule Numa's earthen bowl and black
dish, and the brittle vessels from Mount Vatican. But now what altars
are there that a Clodius does not assail?

I hear the advice that my good friends of ancient days would give--"Put
on a lock! keep her in confinement! " But who is to guard the guards
themselves? Your wife is as cunning as you, and begins with them. And,
in our days, the highest and the lowest are fired with the same lust.
Nor is she that wears out the black pavement with her feet, better than
she who is borne on the shoulders of her tall Syrian slaves.

Ogulnia, in order that she may go in due state to the games, hires a
dress, and attendants, and a sedan, and pillow, and female friends;
and a nurse, and yellow-haired girl[264] to whom she may issue her
commands. Yet all that remains of her family plate, and even the very
last remnants of it,[265] she gives to well-oiled Athletes. Many women
are in straitened circumstances at home; yet none of them has the
modest selfrestraint that should accompany poverty, or limits herself
within that measure which her poverty has allotted and assigned to her.
Yet _men_ do sometimes look forward to what may be to their interest
hereafter, and, with the ant for their instructress, some have at last
felt a dread of cold and hunger. Yet woman, in her prodigality,
perceives not that her fortune is fast coming to naught; and as though
money, with vegetative power, would bloom afresh[266] from the drained
chest, and the heap from which she takes would be ever full, she never
reflects how great a sum her pleasures cost her. Some women ever take
delight in unwarlike eunuchs, and soft kisses, and the loss of all hope
of beard, that precludes the necessity of abortives. Yet the summit
of their pleasure is when this operation has been performed in the
heat and prime of manhood, and the only loss sustained is that the
surgeon Heliodorus cheats the barber of his fees. Such is his mistress'
will: and, conspicuous from afar, and attracting the eyes of all, he
enters the baths, and vies even with the god that guards our vines and
gardens. Let him sleep with his mistress! But, Postumus, suffer not the
youthful Bromius to enter the lists with him.

If she takes delight in singing, the fibula of none of these fellows
that sells his voice to the prætor holds out: the instruments are
forever in her hands; the whole lyre sparkles with the jewels thickly
set. She runs over the strings with the vibrating quill,[267] with
which the soft Hedymeles performed: this she holds in her hands;
with this she consoles herself, and lavishes kisses on the plectrum,
dear for its owner's sake. One of the clan of the Lamiæ,[268] a lady
of lofty rank, inquired with meal-cake and wine of Janus and Vesta,
whether Pollio might venture to hope for the oaken crown at the
Capitoline games,[269] and promise it to his lyre. What more could
she do were her husband sick? What, if the physicians had despaired
of her infant son? She stood before the altar, and thought no shame
to veil her head for a harper: and went through in due form the words
prescribed,[270] and grew pale as the lamb was opened. Tell me now, I
pray, tell me, thou ancientest of gods, father Janus! dost thou return
answer to these? Great must be indeed the leisure[271] of heaven! There
can be no business there, as far as I see, stirring among you. One
woman consults you about comic actors; another would fain commend a
tragedian to your notice: the soothsayer will become varicose. [272]

But let her rather be musical than fly through the whole city, with
bold bearing; and encounter the assemblies of men, and in her husband's
presence herself converse with generals in their scarlet cloaks,[273]
with unabashed face and breasts exposed. She too knows all that is
going on in the whole world--what the Seres[274] or Thracians are
engaged in--the secrets of the step-mother and her son--what adulterer
is in love, or is in great request. She will tell you who made the
widow pregnant--in what month it was--in what language and manner
each act of love takes place. She is the first[275] to see the comet
that menaces the Armenian and Parthian king; and she intercepts[276]
at the gates the reports and freshest news. Some she invents as well.
That Niphates[277] has overwhelmed whole nations, and that the whole
country is there laid under water by a great deluge; that cities are
tottering, the earth sinking down--this she tells in every place of
resort to every one she meets.

And yet that vice is not more intolerable, than that, though earnestly
entreated,[278] she will seize upon her poor neighbors, and have them
cut in two with lashes. For if her sound slumbers are disturbed by
the barking of a dog, "Bring the clubs[279] here at once! " she cries:
and orders the owner first to be beaten with them, and then the dog.
Terrible to encounter, most awful in visage, she enters the baths by
night--by night she orders her bathing vessels and camp to be set in
motion. She delights in perspiring with great tumult; when her arms
have sunk down wearied with the heavy dumb-bells; and the sly anointer
has omitted to rub down no part of her body. Her poor wretches of
guests meanwhile are overcome with drowsiness and hunger. At last the
lady comes; flushed, and thirsty enough for a whole flagon,[280] which
is placed at her feet and filled from a huge pitcher: of which a second
pint is drained before she tastes food, to make her appetite[281]
quite ravenous. Then having rinsed out her stomach, the wine returns
in a cascade on the floor--rivers gush over the marble pavement,[282]
or the broad vessel reeks of Falernian--for thus, just as when a long
snake has glided into a deep cask, she drinks and vomits. Therefore her
husband turns sick; and with eyes closed smothers his rising bile.

And yet that woman is more offensive still, who, as soon as she has
taken her place at table, praises Virgil, and excuses the suicide
of Dido: matches and compares poets together: in one scale weighs
Maro in the balance, and Homer in the other. The grammarians yield;
rhetoricians are confuted; the whole company is silenced; neither
lawyer nor crier[283] can put in a word, nor even another woman. Such
a torrent of words pours forth, you would say so many basins or bells
were all being struck at once. Henceforth let no one trouble trumpets
or brazen vessels; she will be able singly to relieve the moon when
suffering[284] an eclipse. The philosopher sets a limit even to those
things which are good in themselves.