Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookwhich." Macbeth, Act iii., 4. Cf. Anacreon, iii., 1; Theocr., xxiv., 11. i. e., a little after midnight. [209] "Tonsursæ tempus inter æquinoctium vernum et solstitium, quum sudare inceperunt oves: a quo sudore recens lana tonsa sucida appellata est. Tonsus recentes eodem die perungunt vino et oleo." Varro, R. R., II., xi., 6. [210] Cf. iv., 103. [211] "Tenet," or "keeps to himself," or "holds up to the light." [212] _Setine_ was the favorite wine of Augustus. _Alban._ Cf. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 16. [213] Amber was fabled to be produced by the tears of the sisters of Phaeton, the daughters of the Sun, shed for his loss, on the banks of the Eridanus, where they were metamorphosed into poplars or alders. [214] Cf. Virg., Æn., iv., 261. [215] Nero, on his way to Greece, fell in at Beneventum with one Vatinius, "Sutrinæ tabernæ alumnus," whom he took first as his buffoon, and afterward as his confidant. Tac., Ann., xv., 34. Cf. Martial, xiv., Ep. 96. [216] _Sulphura._ Cf. Mart., i., Ep. 43, Qui pallentia sulphurata fractis permutat vitreis. Vid. x., 3, Quæ sulphurata nolit empta ramento Vatiniorum proxeneta fractorum. Compare the "Bellarmines" of mediæval pottery and the Flemish "Graybeards." [217] _Pruinis._ "Neronis principis inventum est decoquere aquam, vitroque demissam in nives refrigerare." Plin., xxxi., 3. [218] _Frivola_; properly "goods and chattels." Cf. iii., 198. [219] _Artocopi._ Cf. Xen., An., IV., iv., 21. Some read Artoptæ. [220] This is the indignant exclamation of Trebius. [221] _Constrictus_, or, "shrunk from having been so long out of the sea." [222] _Cœna_; the Silicernium; served on the ninth day to appease the dead. Cf. Plaut., Pseud., III., ii., 7; Aul., II., iv., 45. [223] _Vendat._ Cf. iii., 187. Aurelia. See Plin., ii., Ep. 20. [224] _Lina._ Cf. Virg., Georg., i., 142. [225] The pike (Lupus Tiberinus) was esteemed in exact proportion to the distance it was caught from the common sewers of Rome. Hor., ii., Sat. ii., 31. [226] _Structor._ Cf. xi., 136. [227] _Cacus._ Virg., Æn., viii., 264. [228] Free Roman citizens had three names, prænomen, nomen, and cognomen. Slaves had no prænomen. Cf. Pers., Sat. v., 76-82. He means to imply that, by turning parasite, Trebius had virtually forfeited the privileges of a free Roman. [229] _Da Trebio._ Cf. Suet., Dom., xi., "partibus de cœnâ dignatus est." Xen., Anab., I., ix., 26. [230] Virg., Æn., iv., 327. [231] _Viridem thoraca._ Heinrich supposes this to be a mimic piece of armor, to be worn by children playing at soldiers. [232] _Nuces_, "walnuts;" minimas nuces, _nuts_. [233] Cf. Tac., Ann., xii., 66, 7, "Infusum cibo boletorum venenum;" it was prepared by Locusta. Cf. Sat. i., 71. Martial, Ep., I., xxi., 4, "Boletum qualem Claudius edit, edas." Cf. Suet., Nero, 33. [234] Probably alluding to a monkey exhibited riding on a goat, and equipped as a soldier, to amuse the Prætorian guards at their barrack gate; or, as some think, the "recruit" himself is intended, and then Capella is taken as a proper name. [235] The golden bulla, hollow, and in the shape of a heart, was borrowed from the Etruscans, and at first confined to the children of nobles. It was afterward borne, like the "tria nomina," by all who were free-born, till they were fifteen. The poorer citizens had it made of leather, or some cheap material. Cf. xiv., 5, hæres bullatus. [236] Cf. Xen., Anab., I., ix., 26. SATIRE VI. I believe that while Saturn still was king, chastity lingered upon earth, and was long seen there: when a chill cavern furnished a scanty dwelling, and inclosed in one common shade the fire and household gods, the cattle, and their owners. When a wife, bred on the mountains, prepared a rustic bed with leaves and straw and the skins of the wild beasts their neighbors; not like thee, Cynthia[237]--or thee whose beaming eyes the death of a sparrow dimmed with tears--but bearing breasts from which her huge infants might drink, not suck, and often more uncivilized even than her acorn-belching husband. Since men lived very differently then, when the world was new, and the sky but freshly created, who, born out of the riven oak, or moulded out of clay, had no parents. Many traces of primæval chastity, perhaps, or some few at least, may have existed, even under Jove; but then it was before Jove's beard was grown; before the Greeks were yet ready to swear by another's head; when no one feared a thief for his cabbages or apples, but lived with garden uninclosed. Then by degrees Astræa retired to the realms above, with chastity for her companion, and the two sisters fled together. To violate the marriage-bed, and laugh to scorn the genius that presides over the nuptial couch, is an ancient and a hackneyed vice, Postumus. Every other species of iniquity the age of iron soon produced. The silver age witnessed the first adulterers. And yet are you preparing your marriage covenant, and the settlement,[238] and betrothal, in our days, and are already under the hands of the master barber, and perhaps have already given the pledge for her finger! Well! you _used_ to be sane, at all events! You, Postumus, going to marry! Say, what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to be the slave of any woman, while so many halters are to be had? so long as high and dizzy windows are open for you, and the Æmilian bridge presents itself so near at hand? Or if, out of so many ways of quitting life, none pleases you, do you not think your present plan better, of having a stripling to sleep with you, who lying there, reads you no curtain lectures, exacts no little presents from you, and never complains that you are too sparing in your efforts to please him? But Ursidius is delighted with the Julian law[239]--he thinks of bringing up a darling heir, nor cares to lose the fine turtledove and bearded mullets,[240] and all the baits for legacies in the dainties of the market. What will you believe to be impossible, if Ursidius takes a wife? If he, of yore the most notorious of adulterers, whom the chest of Latinus in peril of his life has so often concealed, is now going to insert his idiot head in the nuptial halter; nay, and more than this, is looking out for a wife possessed of the virtues of ancient days! Haste, physicians, bore through the middle vein! What a nice man! Fall prostrate at the threshold of Tarpeian Jove, and sacrifice to Juno a heifer with gilded horns, if you have the rare good fortune to find a matron with unsullied chastity. So few are there worthy to handle the fillets of Ceres; so few, whose kisses their own fathers might not dread. Wreathe chaplets for the door-posts, stretch thick clusters of ivy over the threshold. Is one husband enough for Iberina? Sooner will you prevail on her to be content with one eye. "Yet there is a great talk of a certain damsel, living at her father's country-house!" Let her live at Gabii as she lived in the country, or even at Fidenæ, an |