Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/311

 poor Pollio, his finger stripped, has to go a-begging! It is not an early death or an untimely grave that extravagance has to dread; old age is more terrible to it than death.

The regular stages are these; money is borrowed in Rome and squandered before the owner's eyes; when some little of it is still left, and the lender's face grows pale, these gentlemen give leg bail, and make off for Baiae and its oyster-beds—for in these days people think no more of absconding from the Forum than of flitting from the stuffy Subura to the Esquiline. One pang, one sorrow only, afflicts these exiles, that they must, for one season, miss the Circensian games! No drop of blood lingers in their cheek; Shame is ridiculed as she flees from the city, and few would bid her stay.

To-day, friend Persicus, you will discover whether I make good, in deed and in my ways ot life, the fair maxims which I preach, or whether, while commending beans, I am at heart a glutton: openly bidding my slave to bring me porridge, but whispering "cheese-cakes" in his ear. For now that you have promised to be my guest, you will find in me an Evander ; you yourself will be the Tirynthian, or the guest less great than he, though he too came of blood divine—the one by water, the other borne by fire, to the stars. And now hear my feast, which no meat-market shall adorn. From my Tiburtine farm there will come a plump kid, tenderest of the flock, innocent of grass, that has never yet dared to nibble the twigs of the dwarf willow, and has more of milk in him than blood; some wild asparagus, gathered 225