The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
General
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
For you do seem to have no gall ἐφ' ἥπατι (_in your liver_).
There is also a fish which is called ἥπατος, which Eubulus himself
mentions in his Lacedæmonians or Leda, and says that it has no gall in
it--
You thought that I'd no gall; but spoke to me
As if I'd been a ἥπατος: but I
Am rather one of the melampyx class.
But Hegesander, in his Memorials, says, that the hepatos has in its head
two stones, like pearls in brilliancy and colour, and in shape something
like a turbot.
71. But Alexis speaks of fried fish in his Demetrius, as he does also in
the before-mentioned play. And Eubulus says, in his Orthane--
Now each fair woman walks about the streets,
Fond of fried fish and stout Triballian youths.
Then there is beet-root and canary-grass
Mix'd up in forcemeat with the paunch of lamb,
Which leaps within one's stomach like a colt
Scarce broken to the yoke. Meanwhile the bellows
Waken the watchful hounds of Vulcan's pack,
And stir the frying-pan with vapours warm.
The fragrant steam straight rises to the nose,
And fills the sense with odours.
Then comes the daughter of the bounteous Ceres,
Fair wheaten flour, duly mash'd, and press'd
Within the hollow of the gaping jaws,
Which like the trireme's hasty shock comes on,
The fair forerunner of a sumptuous feast.
I have also eaten cuttle-fish fried. But Nicostratus or Philetærus says,
in the Antyllus--I never again will venture to eat cuttle-fish which has
been dressed in a frying-pan. But Hegemon, in his Philinna, introduces
men eating the roe fried, saying--
Go quickly, buy of them that polypus,
And fry the roe, and give it us to eat.
72. Ulpian was not pleased at this; and being much vexed, he looked at
us, and repeating these iambics from the Orthanus of Eubulus, said--
How well has Myrtilus, cursed by the gods,
Come now to shipwreck on this frying-pan.
For certainly I well know that he never ate any of these things at his
own expense; and I heard as much from one of his own servants, who once
quoted me these iambics from the Pornoboscus of Eubulus--
My master comes from Thessaly; a man
Of temper stern; wealthy, but covetous;
A wicked man; a glutton; fond of dainties,
Yet sparing to bestow a farthing on them.
But as the young man was well educated, and that not by Myrtilus, but by
some one else, when I asked him how he fell in with the young Myrtilus,
he repeated to me these lines from the Neottis of Antiphanes--
While still a boy, bearing my sister company,
I came to Athens, by some merchant brought;
For Syria was my birthplace. There that merchant
Saw us when we were both put up for sale,
And bought us, driving a most stingy bargain.
No man could e'er in wickedness surpass him;
So miserly, that nothing except thyme
Was ever bought by him for food, not e'en
So much as might have fed Pythagoras.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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