You may imagine, perhaps, that Virro does all this from stinginess. No! his very object is to vex you. For what play, what mime is better than disappointed gluttony? All this, therefore, is done, if you don't know it, that you may be forced to give vent to your bile by your tears, and gnash long your compressed teeth. You fancy yourself a freeman--the great man's welcome guest! He looks upon you as one caught by the savor of his kitchen. Nor does he conjecture amiss. For who is so utterly destitute as twice to bear with his insolence, if it has been his good fortune, when a boy, to wear the Tuscan gold,[235] or even the boss, the badge of leather, that emblem of poverty. The hope of a good dinner deludes you. "See! sure he'll send us now a half-eaten hare, or a slice of that wild-boar haunch.[236] Now we shall get that capon, as he has helped himself!" Consequently you all sit in silent expectation, with bread in hand, untouched and ready for action. And he that uses you thus shows his wisdom--if you _can_ submit to all these things, then you _ought_ to bear them. Some day or other, you will present your head with shaven crown, to be beaten: nor hesitate to submit to the harsh lash--well worthy of such a banquet and such a friend as this! FOOTNOTES: [204] _Propositi._ So ix., 20, flexisse videris propositum. [205] _Iniquas._ From the marked difference in the treatment of the different guests. [206] _Quum Pol sit honestius._ Rupertis' conjecture. [207] Trebius is put in the lowest place in the triclinium, the third culcitra, or cushion, on the lowest (tertia) bed, and only because there was no one else to occupy it. [208] "What is the night? Almost at odds with morning, which is which." Macbeth, Act iii., 4. Cf. Anacreon, iii., 1; Theocr., xxiv., 11. i. e., a little after midnight. [209] "Tonsursæ tempus inter æquinoctium vernum et solstitium, quum sudare inceperunt oves: a quo sudore recens lana tonsa sucida appellata est. Tonsus recentes eodem die perungunt vino et oleo." Varro, R. R., II., xi., 6. [210] Cf. iv., 103. [211] "Tenet," or "keeps to himself," or "holds up to the light." [212] _Setine_ was the favorite wine of Augustus. _Alban._ Cf. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 16. [213] Amber was fabled to be produced by the tears of the sisters of Phaeton, the daughters of the Sun, shed for his loss, on the banks of the Eridanus, where they were metamorphosed into poplars or alders. [214] Cf. Virg., Æn., iv., 261. [215] Nero, on his way to Greece, fell in at Beneventum with one Vatinius, "Sutrinæ tabernæ alumnus," whom he took first as his buffoon, and afterward as his confidant. Tac., Ann., xv., 34. Cf. Martial, xiv., Ep. 96. [216] _Sulphura._ Cf. Mart., i., Ep. 43, Qui pallentia sulphurata fractis permutat vitreis. Vid. x., 3, Quæ sulphurata nolit empta ramento Vatiniorum proxeneta fractorum. Compare the "Bellarmines" of mediæval pottery and the Flemish "Graybeards."