Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/485

 is not sufficiently cleared of stones." Well then, if none of my paternal aunts survives, if I have no cousin on my father's side, if my paternal uncle has left no great-grand-daughters, if my maternal aunt has died without issue, and there is no living descendant of my grandmother, I go off to Bovillae and the hill of Virbius, and there I find in Manius an heir ready to my hand! "What? the son of a clod?" you say. Well, just ask of me who is my great-great-grandfather; I could tell you that, though perhaps not in a moment; add one step more, and then again another, and by that time you come to a son of earth, so that by strict lineal ascent this Manius turns out to be a kind of great-great-uncle. Why do you, who are before me, ask for my torch while I am still running? I am for you a Mercury, I come to you just as that God is represented in pictures. Do you reject the gift? Won't you take what I leave you and be thankful?—"There is a shortage in the amount," you say. Yes; I lessened it for my own use; but what remains, whatever it is, is all for you. Don't 399