Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/216

 And mention o'er each separate dish;— Onions and olives, garlic too, Cucumbers, cabbages, and broth, Fig-leaves, and herbs, and tunny cutlets, Glanis and rhinè, shark and conger, A phyxicinus whole, a tunny, A coracinus whole, a thunnis, A small anchovy, and a tench, A spindle-fish, a tail of dog-fish, A carcharias and a torpedo; A sea-frog, lizard, and a perch, A trichias and a phycis too, A brinchus, mullet, and sea-cuckoo. A turtle, and besides a lamprey, A phagrus, lebias, and grey mullet, A sparus, and æolias, A swallow, and the bird of Thrace, A sprat, a squid, a turbot, and Dracænides, and polypi, A cuttle-fish, an orphus too; A crab, likewise an escharus, A needle-fish, a fine anchovy, Some cestres, scorpions, eels, and loaves. And loads of other meat, beyond My calculation or my mention. Dishes of goose, and pork, and beef, And lamb, and mutton, goat and kid; Of poultry, ducks and partridges, And jays, and foxes. And what follows Will be a downright sight to see, So many good things there will be. And all the slaves through all the house Are busy baking, roasting, dressing, And plucking, cutting, beating, boiling, And laughing, playing, leaping, feasting, And drinking, joking, scolding, pricking. And lovely sounds from tuneful flutes, And song and din go through the house, Of instruments both wind and string'd. Meantime a lovely scent of cassia, From Syria's fertile land, does strike Upon my sense, and frankincense, And myrrh, and nard * * *

Such a confusion fills the house With every sort of luxury.

68. Now, after all this conversation, there was brought in the dish which is called Rhoduntia; concerning which that wise cook quoted numbers of tragedies before he would tell us what he was bringing us. And he laughed at those who