Juvenal, Satire 5
Translated by Lewis Evans (1889)
Formatted and with notes by C. Chinn (2007)

	IF you are not yet ashamed of your course of life, and your feeling is still the same, 
	that you consider living at another man’s table to be the chief good; if you can 
	put up with such things as not even Sarmentus or Galba,1 contemptible as he was, 
	would have submitted to even at the unequal board of Caesar himself; 
5	I should be afraid to believe your evidence though you were on oath.2 
	I know nothing more easily satisfied than the cravings of nature. 
	Yet even suppose this little that is needed to be wanting, 
	is there no quay vacant? is there no where a bridge, and a piece of mat, 
	somewhat less than half, to beg upon? Is the loss of a supper so great a matter? 
10	is your craving so fierce? when, in faith, it were much more reputable 
	to shiver there, and munch mouldy fragments of dog-biscuit.3 
	
	In the first place, bear in mind, that when invited to dinner, you receive payment 
	in full of your long-standing account of service. The sole result of your friendship 
	with the great man is--a meal! This your patron sets down to your account, and, rare 
15	though it be, still takes it into the calculation. Therefore, if after the lapse 
	of two months he deigns to send for his long-neglected client, only that 
	the third place may not be unoccupied in one couch of his triclinium4--
	“Let us sup together,” he says; the very summit of your wishes! What more 
	can you desire? Trebius has that for which he ought to break his rest, 
20	and hurry away with latchet all untied,5 in his alarm lest 
	the whole crowd at his patron’s levee shall have already gone their round 
	of compliments, when the stars are fading, or at the hour when 
	the chill wain of sluggish Bootes6 wheels slowly round. 
	
	But what sort of a supper is it after all? Wine, such as wool just shorn 
25	would not imbibe.7 You will see the guests become frantic as the priests of Cybele.8 
	Wranglings are the prelude of the fray: but soon you begin to hurl cups as well 
	in retaliation; and wipe your wounds with your napkin stained with blood; 
	as often as a pitched battle, begun with pitchers of Saguntine 
	ware,9 rages between you and the regiment of freedmen. 
30	The great man himself drinks wine racked from the wood under some consul 
	with long hair, and sips the juice of the grape pressed in the Social war;10 
	never likely, however, to send even a small glass to a friend, though sick at heart. 
	To-morrow, he will drink the produce of the mountains of Alba 
	or Setia,11 whose country and date age has obliterated by the 
35	accumulated mould on the ancient amphora;12 such wine as, 
	with chaplets on their heads, Thrasea and Helvidius used to drink 
	on the birthdays of the Bruti and Cassius.13 Virro himself holds 
	capacious cups formed of the tears of the Heliades14 and phials 
	incrusted with beryl. You are not trusted with gold: 
40	or even if it is ever handed to you, a servant is set as a guard over 
	you at the same time, to count the gems and watch your sharp nails. 
	Forgive the precaution: the jasper so much admired there is indeed a noble one: 
	for, like many others, Virro transfers to his cups the gems 
	from off his fingers,15 which the youth, preferred to the 
45	jealous Iarbas, used to set on the front of his scabbard.16 
	You will drain a cup with four noses, that bears 
	the name of the cobbler of Beneventum, already cracked, 
	and fit to be exchanged, as broken glass, for brimstone.17 
	If your patron’s stomach is overheated with wine and food, 
50	he calls for water cooled by being boiled and then iced in Scythian snow. 
	Did I complain just now that the wine set before you was not the same as Virro’s? 
	Why, the very water you drink is different. Your cups will be handed you 
	by a running footman from Gaetulia,18 or the bony hand of some Moor, 
	so black that you would rather not meet him at midnight,19 
55	while riding through the tombs on the steep Latin way.20 
	Before Virro himself stands the flower of Asia,21 purchased at a greater sum 
	than formed the whole revenue of the warlike Tullus, or Ancus22--
	and, not to detain you, the whole fortunes of all the kings of Rome. 
	And so, when you are thirsty, look behind you for your black Ganymede23 
60	that comes from Africa. A boy that costs so many thousands 
	deigns not to mix wine for the poor.24 Nay, his very beauty and bloom 
	of youth justify his sneer. When does he come near you? When would 
	he come, even if you called him, to serve you with hot or cold water? He scorns, 
	forsooth, the idea of obeying an old client, and that you should call for any thing 
65	from his hand; and that you should recline at table, while he has to stand. 
	Every great house is proportionably full of saucy menials. 
	See, too, with what grumbling another of these rascals hands you bread 
	that can scarce be broken; the mouldy fragments of impenetrable crust, 
	which would make your jaws ache, and give you no chance of a bite. 
70	But delicate bread, as white as snow, made of the finest flour, 
	is reserved for the great man. Mind you keep your hands off! 
	Maintain the respect due to the cutter of the bread! Imagine, however, 
	that you have been rather too forward; there stands over you one ready 
	to make you put it down. “Be so good, audacious guest, as to help 
75	yourself from the bread-basket you have been used to, and know the color 
	of your own particular bread.” “So then! it was for this, forsooth, 
	that I so often quitted my wife, and hurried up the steep ascent 
	of the bleak Esquiline,25 when the vernal sky rattled with the pelting 
	of the pitiless hail, and my great coat dripped whole showers of rain!” 
	
80	See! with how vast a body the lobster which is served to your patron 
	fills the dish, and with what fine asparagus it is garnished all round; 
	with what a tail he seems to look down in scorn on the assembled guests, 
	when he comes in raised on high by the hands of the tall slave. 
	But to you is served a common crab, scantily hedged in with half 
85	an egg sliced, a meal fit only for the dead, and in a dish too small to hold it. 
	Virro himself drowns his fish in oil from Venafrum;26 but the 
	pale cabbage set before you, poor wretch, will stink of the lamp. 
	For in the sauce-boats you are allowed, there is served oil 
	such as the canoe of the Micipsae has imported in its sharp prow;27 
90	for which reason no one at Rome would bathe in the same bath with Bocchor;28 
	which makes the blackamoors safe even from the attacks of serpents.29 
	Your patron will have a barbel furnished by Corsica, or 
	the rocks of Tauromonium,30 when all our own waters have been 
	ransacked and failed; while gluttony is raging, 
95	and the market is plying its unwearied nets in the neighboring seas, 
	and we do not allow the Tyrrhene fish to reach their full growth.31 
	The provinces, therefore, have to supply our kitchen; and thence we are 
	furnished with what Laenas32 the legacy-hunter may buy, and Aurelia33 sell again. 
	Virro is presented with a lamprey of the largest size from the Sicilian 
100	whirlpool. For while Auster34 keeps himself close, 
	while he seats himself and dries his wet pinions in prison, the nets, 
	grown venturesome, despise the dangers even of the middle of Charybdis.35 
	An eel awaits you--first-cousin to the long snake--
	or a coarse pike from the Tiber, spotted from the winter’s ice, 
105	a native of the bank-side, fattened on the filth of the rushing sewer, 
	and used to penetrate the drain even of the middle of Subura. 
	
	“I should like to have a word with Virro, if he would lend an attentive ear. 
	No one now expects from you such presents as used to be sent by Seneca 
	to his friends of humble station, or the munificent gifts which the bountiful Piso 
110	or Cotta used to dispense;36 for in days of old the glory of giving was esteemed 
	a higher honor than fasces37 or inscriptions. All we ask is that you would 
	treat us at supper like fellow-citizens. Do this, and then, if you please, be, 
	as many nowadays are, luxurious when alone, parsimonious to your guests.” 
	
	Before Virro himself is the liver of a huge goose; a fat capon, as big 
115	as a goose; and a wild boar, worthy of the spear of the yellow-haired Meleager,38 
	smokes. Then will be served up truffles, if it happens to be 
	spring, and the thunder,39 devoutly wished for by the epicure, shall augment 
	the supper. “Keep your corn, O Libya,40” says Alledius,41 
	“unyoke your oxen; provided only you send us truffles!” 
120	Meanwhile, that no single source of vexation may be wanting, 
	you will see the carver capering and gesticulating with nimble knife, 
	till he has gone through all the directions of his instructor in the art. 
	Nor is it in truth a matter of trifling import 
	with what an air a leveret or a hen is carved. 
125	You would be dragged by the heels, like Cacus when conquered by Hercules,42 
	and turned out of doors, if you were ever to attempt to open your mouth, 
	as though you had three names.43 When does Virro pass 
	the cup to you, or take one that your lips have contaminated? 
	Which of you would be so rash, so lost to all sense of shame, 
130	as to say, “Drink, sir!” to your patron lord?44 There are very 
	many things which men with coats worn threadbare dare not say. 
	If any god, or god-like hero, kinder to you than the fates have been, 
	were to give you a knight’s estate,45 what a great man would you, small mortal, 
	become all at once from nothing at all! What a dear friend of Virro’s!46 
135	“Give this to Trebius! Set this before Trebius! My dear brother, will you take 
	some of this sweet-bread?” O money! it is to thee he pays this honor! 
	it is thou and he are the brothers! But if you wish to be 
	my lord, and my lord’s lord, let no little Aeneas47 sport 
	in your hall, or a daughter more endearing than he. It is the 
140	barrenness of the wife that makes a friend really agreeable and beloved.48 
	But even suppose your Mycale49 should be confined, though she should even 
	present you three boys at a birth, he50 will be the very one to be delighted 
	with the twittering nest; will order his green stomacher51 
	to be brought, and the filberts, and the begged-for penny, 
145	whenever the infant parasite shall come to dine with him.52 
	
	Before his friends whom he holds so vile will be set some very questionable 
	toadstools--before the great man himself, a mushroom--but such an one as 
	Claudius ate, before that furnished by his wife, after which he ate nothing more.53 
	
	Virro will order to be served to himself and his brother Virros such 
150	noble apples, on whose fragrance alone you are allowed to revel; 
	such as the eternal autumn of the Phaeacians54 produced; 
	or such as you might fancy purloined from the African sisters.55 
	You feast upon some shriveled windfall, such as is munched at the ramparts 
	by him that is armed with buckler and helmet: and, in dread of the lash, 
155	learns to hurl his javelin from the shaggy goat’s back.56 
	
	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?57 All this, therefore, is done, 
	if you don’t know it, that you may be forced to give vent to your 
160	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 
165	Tuscan gold, or even the boss, the badge of leather, that emblem of poverty.58 
	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. 
	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. 
170	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:59 nor hesitate to submit 
	to the harsh lash--well worthy of such a banquet and such a friend as this!