Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/329

 Nature's making. Then the skipper, with his crippled ship, makes for the still waters of the inner basin in which any Baian shallop may ride in safety. There the sailors shave their heads and delight, in garrulous ease, to tell the story of their perils.

Away then, ye boys, and with reverent tongues and souls hang up garlands upon the shrines, sprinkle meal upon the knives, and deck the soft altars of verdant turf. I will quickly follow, and having duly performed the greater rite, will return thence home, where my little images of shining crumbling wax are being decked with slender wreaths. Here will I entreat my own Jupiter; here will I offer incense to my paternal Lares, and scatter pansies of every hue. Here all is bright; the gateway, in token of feast, has put up trailing branches, and is worshipping with early-lighted lamps.

Look not askance, Corvinus, upon these rejoicings. The Catullus for whose return I set up all these altars has three little heirs of his own. You may wait long enough before you find anyone to bestow a sickly hen, just closing her eyes, upon so unprofitable a friend; nay, a hen would be all too costly; no quail will ever fall for a man who is a father! But if the rich and childless Gallitta or Pacius have a touch of fever, their entire porticoes will be dressed out with tablets fastened in due form; there will be some to vow hecatombs, not elephants, indeed, seeing that elephants are not for sale, nor does that beast breed in Latium, or anywhere beneath our skies, but is fetched from the dark man's land, and fed in the Rutulian forest and the domains of Turnus. The herd is Caesar's, and will serve no private master, since their forefathers were wont to obey the 243