Satyricon, vol 4, Escape by Sea | Page 8

minds. Factious hatreds died out amidst
universal good-fellowship, and a banquet, served on the field of battle,
crowned our reconciliation with joviality. The whole ship resounded
with song and, as a sudden calm had caused her to lose headway, one
tried to harpoon the leaping fish, another hauled in the struggling catch
on baited hooks. Then some sea- birds alighted upon 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