Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/271

 greater monster is there in the world than a miserly debauchee? 'I gave you this,' says he, 'and then that; and later again ever so much more.' Thus he makes a reckoning with his lusts. Well, set out the counters, call in the lads with the reckoning board, count out five thousand sesterces all told, and then enumerate my services. I am less accounted of than the poor hind who ploughs his master's field. You used to deem yourself a delicate and good-looking youth, fit to be Jove's own cup-bearer; but will men like you, who are unwilling to pay for your own morbid pleasures, ever show a kindness to a poor follower or a slave? A pretty fellow to have presents sent him of green sunshades or big amber balls on a birthday, or on the first day of showery spring, when he lolls at full length in a huge easy chair counting over the secret gifts he has received upon the Matron's Day!

"Tell me, you sparrow, for whose benefit are you keeping all those hills and farms in Apulia, all those pasture-lands that tire out the kites? Your stores are filled with rich grapes from your Trifoline vine-yard, or from the slopes that look down upon Cumae, or the unpeopled Gaurus; whose vats seal up more vintages destined for long life than yours? Would it be a great matter to present a few acres to the loins of an exhausted client? Is it better, think you, that this country woman, with her cottage and her babe and her pet dog, should be bequeathed to a friend who plays the timbrels? 'You're an impudent beggar,' you say. Yes, but my rent cries on me to beg; and so does my single slave-lad—as single as that big eye of Polyphemus which helped the wily Ulysses to make his escape. And one slave is not 185