Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/187

 govern the education and conduct of the healthy young man says:

“You shall rise up from your seat upon your elders’ approach; you shall never be pert to your parents or do any other unseemly act under the pretence of remodelling the image of Modesty. You will not rush off to the dancing-girl’s house, lest while you gaze upon her charms, some whore should pelt you with an apple and ruin your reputation.”

“This were gracious to me as in the story old to the maiden fleet of foot was the apple golden-fashioned which unloosed her girdle long-time girt.” Catullus ii.

“I send thee these verses recast from Battiades, lest thou shouldst credit thy words by chance have slipped from my mind, given o’er to the wandering winds, as it was with that apple, sent as furtive love token by the wooer, which out-leaped from the virgin’s chaste bosom: for, placed by the hapless girl ’neath her soft vestment, and forgotten—when she starts at her mother’s approach, out ’tis shaken: and down it rolls headlong to the ground, whilst a tell-tale flush mantles the cheek of the distressed girl.” Catullus lxv.

“But I know what is going on, and I intend presently to tell my master; for I do not want to show myself less grateful than the dogs which bark in Rh