Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/317

 of the tusks sent to us by the swift-footed Moor from the portal of Syene, or by the still duskier Indian—or perhaps shed by the monstrous beast in the Nabataean forest when too big and too heavy for his head. These are the things that give good appetite and good digestion; for to these gentlemen a table with a leg of silver is like a finger with an iron ring. For this reason I will have none of your haughty guests to make comparisons between himself and me, and look down upon my humble state. So destitute am I of ivory that neither my dice nor counters are made of it; even my knife-handles are of bone. Yet are not the viands tainted thereby, nor does the pullet cut up any the worse on that account. Nor shall I have a carver to whom the whole carving-school must bow, a pupil of the learned Trypherus, in whose school is cut up, with blunt knives, a magnificent feast of hares and sow's paunches, of boars and antelopes, of Scythian fowls and tall flamingoes and Gaetulian gazelles, until the whole Subura rings with the clatter of the elm-wood banquet. My raw youngster, untutored all his days, has never learnt how to filch a slice of kid or the wing of a guinea-fowl, unpractised save in the theft of scraps. Cups of common ware, bought for a few pence, will be handed round by an unpolished lad, clad so as to keep out the cold. No Phrygian or Lycian youth, none bought from a dealer at a huge price, will you find; when you want anything, ask for it in Latin. They are all dressed alike; their hair cut close and uncurled, and only combed to-day because of the company. One is the son of a hardy shepherd; 231