Satyricon, vol 4, Escape by Sea | Page 8

the yard-arms and a skillful fowler touched them with his jointed rods: they were brought down to our hands, stuck fast to the limed segments. The breeze caught up the down, but the wing and tail feathers twisted spirally as they fell into the sea-foam. Lycas was already beginning to be on good terms with me, and Tryphaena had just sprinkled Giton with the last drops in her cup, when Eumolpus, who was himself almost drunk, was seized with the notion of satirizing bald pates and branded rascals, but when he had exhausted his chilly wit, he returned at last to his poetry and recited this little elegy upon hair:
"Gone are those locks that to thy beauty lent such lustrous charm And blighted are the locks of Spring by bitter Winter's sway; Thy naked temples now in baldness mourn their vanished form, And glistens now that poor bare crown, its hair all worn away Oh! Faithless inconsistency! The gods must first resume The charms that first they granted youth, that it might lovelier bloom! Poor wretch, but late thy locks did brighter glister Than those of great Apollo or his sister! Now, smoother is thy crown than polished grasses Or rounded mushrooms when a shower passes! In fear thou fliest the laughter-loving lasses. That thou may'st know that Death is on his way, Know that thy head is partly dead this day!"

CHAPTER THE
ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH.
It is my opinion that he intended favoring us with more of the same kind of stuff, sillier than the last, but Tryphaena's maid led Giton away below and fitted the lad out in her mistress' false curls; then producing some eyebrows from a vanity box, she skillfully traced out the lines of the lost features and restored him to his proper comeliness. Recognizing the real Giton, Tryphaena was moved to tears, and then for the first time she gave the boy a real love-kiss. I was overjoyed, now that the lad was restored to his own handsome self, but I hid my own face all the more assiduously, realizing that I was disfigured by no ordinary hideousness since not even Lycas would bestow a word upon me. The maid rescued me from this misfortune finally, however, and calling me aside, she decked me out with a head of hair which was none the less becoming; my face shone more radiantly still, as a matter of fact, for my curls were golden! But in a little while, Eumolpus, mouthpiece of the distressed and author of the present good understanding, fearing that the general good humor might flag for lack of amusement, began to indulge in sneers at the fickleness of women: how easily they fell in love; how readily they forgot even their own sons! No woman could be so chaste but that she could be roused to madness by a chance passion! Nor had he need to quote from old tragedies, or to have recourse to names, notorious for centuries; on the contrary, if we cared to hear it, he would relate an incident which had occurred within his own memory, whereupon, as we all turned our faces towards him and gave him our attention, he began as follows:

CHAPTER THE
ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH.
"There was a certain married lady at Ephesus, once upon a time, so noted for her chastity that she even drew women from the neighboring states to come to gaze upon her! When she carried out her husband she was by no means content to comply with the conventional custom and follow the funeral cortege with her hair down, beating her naked breast in sight of the onlookers! She followed the corpse, even into the tomb; and when the body had been placed in the vault, in accordance with the Greek custom, she began to stand vigil over it, weeping day and night! Neither parents nor relations could divert her from punishing herself in this manner and from bringing on death by starvation. The magistrates, the last resort, were rebuffed and went away, and the lady, mourned by all as an unusual example, dragged through the fifth day without nourishment. A most faithful maid was in attendance upon the poor woman; she either wept in company with the afflicted one or replenished the lamp which was placed in the vault, as the occasion required. Throughout the whole city there was but one opinion, men of every calling agreed that here shone the one solitary example of chastity and of love! In the meantime the governor of the province had ordered some robbers crucified near the little vault in which the lady was bewailing her recent loss. On the following night, a soldier who was standing guard over the crosses for fear someone might drag down one of the bodies for burial, saw