Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/181

Rh what ancestry descended each began the contest. The illustrious race of Messius—Oscan: Sarmentus’s mistress is still alive. Sprung from such families as these, they came to the combat. First, Sarmentus: “I pronounce thee to have the look of a mad horse.” We laugh; and Messius himself [says], “I accept your challenge:” and wags his head. “O!” cries he, “if the horn were not cut off your forehead, what would you not do; since, maimed as you are, you bully at such a rate?” For a foul scar has disgraced the left part of Messius’s bristly forehead. Cutting many jokes upon his Campanian disease, and upon his face, he desired him to exhibit Polyphemus’s dance: that he had no occasion for a mask, or the tragic buskins. Cicirrus [retorted] largely to these: he asked, whether he had consecrated his chain to the household gods according to his vow; though he was a scribe, [he told him] his mistress’s property in him was not the less. Lastly, he asked, how he ever came to run away; such a lank meager fellow, for whom a pound of corn [a-day] would be ample. We were so diverted, that we continued that supper to an unusual length.

Hence we proceed straight on for Beneventum; where the bustling landlord almost burned himself, in roasting some lean