Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/165

 lordly gifts as Seneca, or the good Piso or Cotta, used to send to their humble friends; for in the days of old, the glory of giving was deemed grander than titles or fasces. All we ask of you is that you should dine with us as a fellow-citizen : do this and remain, like so many others nowadays, rich for yourself and poor to your friends."

Before Virro is put a huge goose's liver; a capon as big as a goose, and a boar, piping hot. worthy of yellow-haired Meleager's steel. Then will come truffles, if it be spring-time and the longed-for thunder have enlarged our dinners. "Keep your corn to yourself, O Libya!" says Alledius; "unyoke your oxen, if only you send us truffles!"

During all this time, lest any occasion for disgust should be wanting, you may behold the carver capering and gesticulating with knife in air, and carrying out all the instructions of his preceptor; for it makes a mighty difference with what gestures a hare or a hen be carved! If you ever dare to utter one word as though you were possessed of three names, you will be dragged by the heels and thrust out of doors as Cacus was, after the drubbing he got from Hercules. When will Virro offer to drink wine with you? or take a cup that has been polluted by your lips? Which one of you would be so foolhardy, so lost to shame, as to say to your patron "A glass with you, Sir"? No, no; there's many a thing which a man whose coat has holes in it cannot say! But if some God, or god-like manikin more kindly than the fates, should present you with four hundred thousand 79