The Satyricon | Page 9

I realized that I
had been led into a brothel. After cursing the wiles of the little old hag,
I covered my head and commenced to run through the middle of the
night-house to the exit opposite, when, lo and behold! whom should I
meet on the very threshold but Ascyltos himself, as tired as I was, and
almost dead; you would have thought that he had been brought by the
self-same little old hag! I smiled at that, greeted him cordially, and
asked him what he was doing in such a scandalous place.
CHAPTER THE
EIGHTH.
Wiping away the sweat with his hands, he replied, "If you only knew
what I have gone through!" "What was it?" I demanded. "A most
respectable looking person came up to me," he made reply, "while I
was wandering all over the town and could not find where I had left my
inn, and very graciously offered to guide me. He led me through some
very dark and crooked alleys, to this place, pulled out his tool, and
commenced to beg me to comply with his appetite. A whore had
already vacated her cell for an as, and he had laid hands upon me, and,
but for the fact that I was the stronger, I would have been compelled to
take my medicine." (While Ascyltos was telling me of his bad luck,
who should come up again but this same very respectable looking
person, in company with a woman not at all bad looking, and, looking
at Ascyltos, he requested him to enter the house, assuring him that there
was nothing to fear, and, since he was unwilling to take the passive part,
he should have the active. The woman, on her part, urged me very

persistently to accompany her, so we followed the couple, at last, and
were conducted between the rows of name-boards, where we saw, in
cells, many persons of each sex amusing themselves in such a manner)
that it seemed to me that every one of them must have been drinking
satyrion. (On catching sight of us, they attempted to seduce us with
paederastic wantonness, and one wretch, with his clothes girded up,
assaulted Ascyltos, and, having thrown him down upon a couch,
attempted to gore him from above. I succored the sufferer immediately,
however,) and having joined forces, we defied the troublesome wretch.
(Ascyltos ran out of the house and took to his heels, leaving me as the
object of their lewd attacks, but the crowd, finding me the stronger in
body and purpose, let me go unharmed.)
CHAPTER THE
NINTH.
(After having tramped nearly all over the city,) I caught sight of Giton,
as though through a fog, standing at the end of the street, (on the very
threshold of the inn,) and I hastened to the same place. When I inquired
whether my "brother" had prepared anything for breakfast, the boy sat
down upon the bed and wiped away the trickling tears with his thumb. I
was greatly disturbed by such conduct on the part of my "brother," and
demanded to be told what had happened. After I had mingled threats
with entreaties, he answered slowly and against his will, "That brother
or comrade of yours rushed into the room a little while ago and
commenced to attempt my virtue by force. When I screamed, he pulled
out his tool and gritted out--If you're a Lucretia, you've found your
Tarquin!" When I heard this, I shook my fists in Ascyltos' face, "What
have you to say for yourself," I snarled, "you rutting pathic harlot,
whose very breath is infected?" Ascyltos pretended to bristle up and,
shaking his fists more boldly still, he roared: "Won't you keep quiet,
you filthy gladiator, you who escaped from the criminal's cage in the
amphitheatre to which you were condemned (for the murder of your
host?) Won't you hold your tongue, you nocturnal assassin, who, even
when you swived it bravely, never entered the lists with a decent
woman in your life? Was I not a 'brother' to you in the pleasure-garden,

in the same sense as that in which this boy now is in this
lodging-house?" "You sneaked away from the master's lecture," I
objected.
CHAPTER THE
TENTH. "What should I have done, you triple fool, when I was dying
of hunger? I suppose I should have listened to opinions as much to the
purpose as the tinkle of broken glass or the interpretation of dreams. By
Hercules, you are much more deserving of censure than I, you who will
flatter a poet so as to get an invitation to dinner!" Then we laughed
ourselves out of a most disgraceful quarrel, and approached more
peaceably whatever remained to be done. But the remembrance of that
injury recurred to my mind and, "Ascyltos,"