Besides, in gratitude for such high matters, Know I have vowed two hundred gladiators.[265] Say, would'st thou hinder me from this expence? I disinherit thee, if thou dar'st take offence. Yet more, a public largess I design Of oil and pies, to make the people dine; Controul me not, for fear I change my will. And yet methinks I hear thee grumbling still,-- You give as if you were the Persian king; Your land does not so large revenues bring. Well, on my terms thou wilt not be my heir? If thou car'st little, less shall be my care. Were none of all my father's sisters left; Nay, were I of my mother's kin bereft; None by an uncle's or a grandame's side, Yet I could some adopted heir provide. I need but take my journey half a day } From haughty Rome, and at Aricia stay, } Where fortune throws poor Manius in my way. } Him will I choose:--What him, of humble birth, Obscure, a foundling, and a son of earth-- Obscure! Why, pr'ythee, what am I? I know My father, grandsire, and great-grandsire too: If farther I derive my pedigree, I can but guess beyond the fourth degree. The rest of my forgotten ancestors Were sons of earth, like him, or sons of whores. Yet why should'st thou, old covetous wretch, aspire To be my heir, who might'st have been my sire? In nature's race, should'st thou demand of me My torch, when I in course run after thee?[266] Think I approach thee, like the god of gain, With wings on head and heels, as poets feign: Thy moderate fortune from my gift receive; Now fairly take it, or as fairly leave. But take it as it is, and ask no more-- What, when thou hast embezzled all thy store? Where's all thy father left?--'Tis true, I grant, Some I have mortgaged to supply my want: The legacies of Tadius too are flown, All spent, and on the self-same errand gone.-- How little then to my poor share will fall!-- Little indeed; but yet that little's all. Nor tell me, in a dying father's tone,-- Be careful still of the main chance, my son; Put out thy principal in trusty hands, Live on the use, and never dip thy lands: But yet what's left for me?--What's left, my friend! Ask that again, and all the rest I spend. Is not my fortune at my own command? Pour oil, and pour it with a plenteous hand Upon my sallads, boy: shall I be fed With sodden nettles, and a singed sow's head? 'Tis holiday, provide me better cheer; 'Tis holiday, and shall be round the year. Shall I my household gods and genius cheat, To make him rich, who grudges me my meat, That he may loll at ease, and, pampered high, When I am laid, may feed on giblet-pie, And, when his throbbing lust extends the vein, Have wherewithal his whores to entertain?