Here all our courage fail’d us, and nothing but certain death seem’d to appear before us. When I began, “If, madam, you design to be more severe with us, be yet so kind as to dispatch it quickly; for whate’er our offence be, it is not so heinous that we ought to be rack’d to death for it”: Upon which her woman, whose name was Psyche, spread a coverlet on the floor. Sollicitavit inguina mea mille iam mortibus frigida. Ascyltos muffled his head in his coat, as having had a hint given him, how dangerous it was to take notice of what did not concern him: In the mean time Psyche took off her garters, and with one of them bound my feet, and with the other my hands. Thus fetter’d as I lay, “This, madam,” said I, “is not the way to rid you of your ague.” “I grant it,” answer’d Psyche, “but I have a Dose at hand will infallibly do it” and therefore brought me a lusty bowl of satyricon and so merrily ran over the wonderful effects of it, that I had well-nigh suck’d it all off; but because Ascyltos had slighted her courtship, she finding his back toward her, threw the bottom of it on him. Ascyltos perceiving the chat was at an end, “Am not I worthy,” said he, “to get a sup?” And Psyche fearing my laughter might discover her, clapped her hands, and told him, “Young man, I made you an offer of it, but your friend here has drunk it all out.” “Is it so,” quoth Quartilla, smiling very agreeably, “and has Encolpius gugg’d it all down?” At last also even Gito laught for company, at what time the young wench flung her arms about his neck, and meeting no resistance, half smother’d him with kisses. A peculiar situation in which erotic provocation or inducement to passion is conditioned by the concept of social prestige, or, in the contemporary idiom, status, is exemplified in a later passage in Petronius’ _Satyricon_: Going out full of these thoughts to divert my concern, I resolv’d on a walk, but I had scarce got into a publick one, e’re a pretty girl made up to me, and calling me Polyaemus, told me her lady wou’d be proud of an opportunity to speak with me. “You’re mistaken, sweet-heart,” return’d I, in a little heat, “I’m but a servant, of another country too, and not worthy of so great a favor.”