Satyricon, vol 2, Trimalchio | Page 7

Seleucus took up the tale. "I don't bathe every day," he confided,
"a bath uses you up like a fuller: water's got teeth and your strength
wastes away a little every day; but when I've downed a pot of mead, I
tell the cold to suck my cock! I couldn't bathe today anyway, because I
was at a funeral; dandy fellow, he was too, good old Chrysanthus
slipped his wind! Why, only the other day he said good morning' to me,
and I almost think I'm talking to him now! Gawd's truth, we're only
blown-up bladders strutting around, we're less than flies, for they have
some good in them, but we're only bubbles. And supposing he had not
kept to such a low diet! Why, not a drop of water or a crumb of bread
so much as passed his lips for five days; and yet he joined the majority!
Too many doctors did away with him, or rather, his time had come, for
a doctor's not good for anything except for a consolation to your mind!
He was well carried out, anyhow, in the very bed he slept in during his
lifetime. And he was covered with a splendid pall: the mourning was
tastefully managed; he had freed some slaves; even though his wife was
sparing with her tears: and what if he hadn't treated her so well! But
when you come to women, women all belong to the kite species: no
one ought to waste a good turn upon one of them; it's just like throwing
it down a well! An old love's like a cancer!"
CHAPTER THE

FORTY-THIRD.
He was becoming very tiresome, and Phileros cried out, "Let's think
about the living! He has what was coming to him, he lived respectably,
and respectably he died. What's he got to kick about'? He made his pile
from an as, and would pick a quadrans out of a dunghill with his teeth,
any old time. And he grew richer and richer, of course: just like a
honeycomb. I expect that he left all of a hundred thousand, by Hercules,
I do! All in cold cash, too; but I've eaten dog's tongue and must speak
the truth: he was foul-mouthed, had a ready tongue, he was a trouble
maker and no man. Now his brother was a good fellow, a friend to his
friend, free-handed, and he kept a liberal table. He picked a loser at the
start, but his first vintage set him upon his legs, for he sold his wine at
the figure he demanded, and, what made him hold his head higher still,
he came into a legacy from which he stole more than had been left to
him. Then that fool friend of yours, in a fit of anger at his brother,
willed his property away to some son-of-a-bitch or other, who he was, I
don't know, but when a man runs away from his own kin, he has a long
way to go! And what's more, he had some slaves who were ear-
specialists at the keyhole, and they did him a lot of harm, for a man
won't prosper when he believes, on the spot, every tale that he hears; a
man in business, especially. Still, he had a good time as long as he
lived: for happy's the fellow who gets the gift, not the one it was meant
for. He sure was Fortune's son! Lead turned to gold in his hands. It's
easy enough when everything squares up and runs on schedule. How
old would you think he was? Seventy and over, but he was as tough as
horn, carried his age well, and was as black as a crow. I knew the
fellow for years and years, and he was a lecher to the very last. I don't
believe that even the dog in his house escaped his attentions, by
Hercules, I don't; and what a boy-lover he was! Saw a virgin in every
one he met! Not that I blame him though, for it's all he could take with
him."
CHAPTER THE
FORTY-FOURTH.

Phileros had his say and Ganymedes exclaimed, "You gabble away
about things that don't concern heaven or earth: and none of you cares
how the price of grain pinches. I couldn't even get a mouthful of bread
today, by Hercules, I couldn't. How the drought does hang on! We've
had famine for a year. If the damned AEdiles would only get what's
coming to them. They graft with the bakers,
scratch-my-arse-and-I'll-scratch-yours! That's the way it always is, the
poor devils are out of luck, but the jaws of the capitalists are always
keeping the Saturnalia. If only we had such lion-hearted sports as we
had when I first came from Asia! That was the life! If the flour