parts. You may rouse the jaded toper with roasted
shrimps and African cockles; for lettuce after wine
floats upon the soured stomach: by ham preferably,
and by sausages, it craves to be restored to its appetite:
nay, it will prefer every thing which is brought smoking
hot from the nasty eating-houses. It is worth
while to be acquainted with the two kinds of sauce.
The simple consists of sweet oil; which it will be
proper to mix with rich wine and pickle, but with no
other pickle than that by which the Byzantine jar
has been tainted. When this, mingled with shredded
herbs, has boiled, and sprinkled with Corycian saffron,
has stood, you shall over and above add what the pressed
berry of the Venafran olive yields. The Tiburtian
yield to the Picenian apples in juice, though they
excel in look. The Venusian grape is proper for
[preserving in] pots. The Albanian you had better
harden in the smoke. I am found to be the first
that served up this grape with apples in neat little
side-plates, to be the first [likewise that served
up] wine-lees and herring-brine, and white pepper
finely mixed with black salt. It is an enormous
fault to bestow three thousand sesterces on the fish-market,
and then to cramp the roving fishes in a narrow dish.
It causes a great nausea in the stomach, if even the
slave touches the cup with greasy hands, while he
licks up snacks, or if offensive grime has adhered
to the ancient goblet. In trays, in mats, in
sawdust, [that are so] cheap, what great expense can
there be? But, if they are neglected, it is a
heinous shame. What, should you sweep Mosaic pavements
with a dirty broom made of palm, and throw Tyrian
carpets over the unwashed furniture of your couch!
forgetting, that by how much less care and expense
these things are attended, so much the more justly
may [the want of them] be censured, than of those
things which can not be obtained but at the tables
of the rich?
Learned Catius, entreated by our friendship and the
gods, remember to introduce me to an audience [with
this great man], whenever you shall go to him.
For, though by your memory you relate every thing to
me, yet as a relater you can not delight me in so
high a degree. Add to this the countenance and
deportment of the man; whom you, happy in having seen,
do not much regard, because it has been your lot:
but I have no small solicitude, that I may approach
the distant fountain-heads, and imbibe the precepts
of [such] a blessed life.
* * * *
*
SATIRE V.
In a humorous dialogue between Ulysses and Tiresias,
he exposes those arts which the fortune hunters make
use of, in order to be appointed the heirs of rich
old men.
Beside what you have told me, O Tiresias, answer to
this petition of mine: by what arts and expedients
may I be able to repair my ruined fortunes—why
do you laugh? Does it already seem little to you,
who are practiced in deceit, to be brought back to
Ithaca, and to behold [again] your family household
gods? O you who never speak falsely to anyone,
you see how naked and destitute I return home, according
to your prophecy: nor is either my cellar, or
my cattle there, unembezzled by the suitors [of Penelope].
But birth and virtue, unless [attended] with substance,
is viler than sea weed.