Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/141

Rh who am wont to be escorted home by the moon, or by the scant light of a candle whose wick I husband with due care, he pays no respect. Hear how the wretched fray begins—if fray it can be called when you do all the thrashing and I get all the blows! The fellow stands up against me, and bids me halt; obey I must. What else can you do when attacked by a madman stronger than yourself? 'Where are you from?' shouts he; 'whose swipes, whose beans have blown you out? With what cobbler have you been munching cut leeks and boiled sheep's head?—What, sirrah, no answer? Speak out, or take that upon your shins! Where is your stand? In what prayer-shop shall I find you?' Whether you venture to say anything, or make off silently, it's all one; he will thrash you just the same, and then, in a rage, take bail from you. Such is the liberty of the poor man; having been pounded and cuffed into a jelly, he begs and prays to be allowed to return home with a few teeth in his head!

"Nor are these your only terrors. When your house is shut, when bar and chain have made fast your shop, and all is silent, you will be robbed by a burglar; or perhaps a cut-throat will do for you quickly with cold steel. For whenever the Pontine marshes and the Gallinarian forest are secured by an armed guard, all that tribe flocks into Rome as into a fish-preserve. What furnaces, what anvils, are not groaning with the forging of chains? That is how our iron is mostly used; and you may well fear that ere long none will be left for plough-shares, none for hoes and mattocks. Happy were the forbears of our 55