The Satyricon

The Satyricon, Complete, by
Petronius Arbiter

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Title: The Satyricon, Complete
Author: Petronius Arbiter
Release Date: October 31, 2006 [EBook #5225]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

THE SATYRICON OF PETRONIUS ARBITER
Complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh, in which
are incorporated the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena, and the readings
introduced into the text by De Salas.
Among the difficulties which beset the path of the conscientious
translator, a sense of his own unworthiness must ever take precedence;
but another, scarcely less disconcerting, is the likelihood of
misunderstanding some allusion which was perfectly familiar to the
author and his public, but which, by reason of its purely local
significance, is obscure and subject to the misinterpretation and
emendation of a later generation.
A translation worthy of the name is as much the product of a literary
epoch as it is of the brain and labor of a scholar; and Melmouth's
version of the letters of Pliny the Younger, made, as it was, at a period
when the art of English letter writing had attained its highest excellence,
may well be the despair of our twentieth century apostles of
specialization. Who, today, could imbue a translation of the Golden
Ass with the exquisite flavor of William Adlington's unscholarly
version of that masterpiece? Who could rival Arthur Golding's
rendering of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, or Francis Hicke's masterly
rendering of Lucian's True History? But eternal life means endless
change and in nothing is this truth more strikingly manifest than in the
growth and decadence of living languages and in the translation of dead
tongues into the ever changing tissue of the living. Were it not for this,
no translation worthy of the name would ever stand in need of revision,
except in instances where the discovery and collation of fresh
manuscripts had improved the text. In the case of an author whose
characters speak in the argot proper to their surroundings, the necessity
for revision is even more imperative; the change in the cultured speech
of a language is a process that requires years to become pronounced,
the evolution of slang is rapid and its usage ephemeral. For example
Stephen Gaselee, in his bibliography of Petronius, calls attention to
Harry Thurston Peck's rendering of "bell um pomum" by "he's a daisy,"
and remarks, appropriately enough, "that this was well enough for 1898;

but we would now be more inclined to render it 'he's a peach.'" Again,
Peck renders "illud erat vivere" by "that was life," but, in the words of
our lyric American jazz, we would be more inclined to render it "that
was the life." "But," as Professor Gaselee has said, "no rendering of this
part of the Satyricon can be final, it must always be in the slang of the
hour."
"Some," writes the immortal translator of Rabelais, in his preface,
"have deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many
condescend to translate but such as cannot invent; though to do the first
well, requires often as much genius as to do the latter. I wish, reader,
thou mayest be as willing to do the author justice, as I have strove to do
him right."
Many scholars have lamented the failure of Justus Lipsius to comment
upon Petronius or edit an edition of the Satyricon. Had he done so, he
might have gone far toward piercing the veil of darkness which
enshrouds the authorship of the work and the very age in which the
composer flourished. To me, personally, the fact that Laurence Sterne
did not undertake a version, has caused much regret. The master who
delineated Tristram Shandy's father and the intrigue between the
Widow Wadman and Uncle Toby would have drawn Trimalchio and
his peers to admiration.
W. C. F.

CONTENTS:
PREFACE INTRODUCTION THE SATYRICON NOTES
PROSTITUTION PAEDERASTIA
CHAPTER NOTES
9 Gladiator obscene 17 Impotence 26 Peepholes in brothels 34 Silver
Skeleton 36 Marsyas 40 A pie full of birds 56 Contumelia 116 Life in
Rome 116 Legacy hunting 119 Castration 127 Circe's voice 131

Sputum in charms 131 The "infamous finger" 138 The dildo The
Cordax
SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA Introduction I Soldiers in love II
Courtesans III Greek love