The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 137

by Petronius Arbiter

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CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH. But, beating her palms together, “You villain, are you so brazen that you can speak?” she shrieked. “Don’t you know what a serious crime you’ve committed? You have slaughtered the delight of Priapus, a goose, the very darling of married women! And for fear you think that nothing serious has happened, if the magistrates find this out you’ll go to the cross! Until this day my dwelling has been inviolate and you have polluted it with blood! You have conducted yourself in such a manner that any enemy I have can turn me out of the priesthood!”

She spoke, and from her trembling head she tore the snow-white hair,
 And scratched her cheeks: her eyes shed floods of tears.
As when a torrent headlong rushes down the valleys drear,
 Its icy fetters gone when Spring appears,
And strikes the frozen shackles from rejuvenated earth:
 So down her face the tears in torrents swept
 And wracking sobs convulsed her as she wept.

“Please don’t make such a fuss,” I said, “I’ll give you an ostrich in place of your goose!” While she sat upon the cot and, to my stupefaction, bewailed the death of the goose, Proselenos came in with the materials for the sacrifice. Seeing the dead goose and inquiring the cause of her grief, she herself commenced to weep more violently still and to commiserate me, as if I had slain my own father, instead of a public goose. Growing tired of this nonsense at last, “See here,” said I, “could I not purchase immunity for a price, even though I had assaulted you? Even though I had murdered a man? Look here! I’m laying down two gold pieces, you can buy both gods and geese with them!” “Forgive me, young man,” said Œnothea, when she caught sight of the gold, “I am anxious upon your account; that is a proof of love, not of malignity. Let us take such precautions that not a soul will find this out. As for you, pray to the gods to forgive your sacrilege!”

The rich man can sail in a favoring gale
 And map out his course at his pleasure;
A Dane espouse, no Acrisius will rail,
 His credence by hers he will measure;
Write verse, or declaim; snap the finger of scorn
 At the world, yet still win all his cases,
The rabble will drink in his words with concern
 When a Cato austere it displaces.
At law, his “not proven,” or “proved,” he can have
 With Servius or Labeo vieing;
With gold at command anything he may crave
 Is his without asking or sighing.
The universe bows at his slightest behest,
 For Jove is a prisoner in his treasure chest.

In the meantime, she scurried around and put a jar of wine under my hands and, when my fingers had all been spread out evenly, she purified them with leeks and parsley. Then, muttering incantations, she threw hazel-nuts into the wine and drew her conclusions as they sank or floated; but she did not hoodwink me, for those with empty shells, no kernel and full of air, would of course float, while those that were heavy and full of sound kernel would sink to the bottom. She then turned her attention to the goose, and, cutting open the breast, she drew out a very fat liver from which she foretold my future. Then, for fear any trace of the crime should remain, she cut the whole goose up, stuck the pieces upon spits, and served up a very delectable dinner for me, whom, but a moment before, she had herself condemned to death, in her own words! Meanwhile, cups of unmixed wine went merrily around (and the crones greedily devoured the goose which they had but so lately lamented. When

Eucolpius Beaten

the last morsel had disappeared, Œnothea, half-drunk by this time, looked at me and said, “We must now go through with the mysteries, so that you may get back your virility.’’)