TO TREBIUS, ON PARASITES.

IF by reiterated scorn made bold,

Thy mind can still its shameless tenour hold,
Still think the greatest blessing earth can give,

Is solely at another's cost to live;

If thou canst brook, what Galba would have spurn'd,
And mean Sarmentus with a frown return'd,
At Cæsar's haughty board, dependents both,
I scarce would take thy evidence on oath.

The belly's fed with little cost: yet grant
Thou shouldst, unhappily, that little want,
Some vacant bridge might doubtless still be found,
Some highway side, where, grovelling on the ground,
Thy shivering limbs compassion's sigh might wake,
And gain an alms for "Charity's sweet sake!"
What! can a meal thus sauced deserve thy care ?
Is hunger so importunate? when there,
There, in thy tatter'd rug, thou may'st, my friend,
On casual scraps more honestly depend,
With chattering teeth toil o'er thy wretched treat,
And gnaw the crusts that dogs refuse to eat !—
For, first, of this be sure: whene'er your lord
Thinks proper to invite you to his board,
He pays, or thinks he pays, the total sum
Of all your pains, past, present, and to come.
Behold the meed of servitude! the great
Reward their humble followers with a treat,
And count it current coin; they count it such,
And, though it be but seldom, think it much.
If, therefore, after two whole months, he send
A billet to his long-neglected friend,
(Though but to fill a vacant seat,) and say,
"You-Master Trebius, dine with me to day;"

You'll pardon him; but lo! a jasper there,
Of matchless worth, which calls for all his care:
For Virro, like his brother peers, of late,
Has stripp'd his fingers to adorn his plate;
And jewels now emblaze the festive board,
Which deck'd, with nobler grace, the Trojan's sword.
From such he drinks; to thee, the slaves allot
The Beneventine cobbler's four-lugg'd pot, (46)
A fragment, a mere shard, of little worth
But to be trucked for matches-and so forth.
If my lord's veins with indigestion glow,
They bring him water cold as Scythian snow.
What! did I late complain a different wine
Fell to thy share? a different water's thine!
Getulian slaves your vile potations pour,
Or the coarse paws of some huge, raw-boned Moor,
Whose hideous form, like spectres, would affray,
If met by moonlight near the Latian way
On him, a youth, the flower of Asia, waits,
So dearly purchased, that the whole estates
Of Tullus, Ancus, would not yield the sum,
Nor all the gear of all the kings of Rome!
Bear this in mind; and when a draught you need,
Look for your own Getulian Ganymede;
A page that cost so much will neʼer, be sure,
Come at your beck; he heeds not, he, the poor;
But of his youth and beauty justly vain,
Trips by them with indifference or disdain.

!

46. This Beneventine was a drunken cobbler called Vatinius. He possessed, says Tacitus, a vein of ribaldry and vulgar humour, which qualified him to succeed as a buffoon; in which character he first recommended himself to notice: but he soon forsook his scurrility for the trade of an informer, and having, by the ruin of the worthiest characters, arrived at eminence in guilt, he rose to wealth and power, the most dangerous miscreant of those dangerous times. When Nero was on his way to Greece, to earn immortal honour by his musical exertions, he stopped at Beneventum, where Vatinius entertained him with a show of gladi. ators,

He pours Venafran oil upon his fish,

While the stale coleworts in thy wooden dish
Stink of the lamp; for such to thee is thrown,
Such rotten grease, as Afric sends to town:
So strong! that when her factors seek the bath,
All wind, and all avoid, the noisome path;
So pestilent! that her own serpents fly
The horrid stench, or meet it but to die.

See! a sur-mullet next before him set,
From Corsica, or isles more distant yet,

Brought post to Rome; since our own seas no more
Supply the insatiate glutton, as of yore,
Thinn'd by the net, whose everlasting throw
Allows no Tuscan fish in peace to grow.
Still luxury yawns, unfill'd-the nations rise,
And ransack all their coasts for fresh supplies;
Thence come your presents, thence, as rumour tells,
The dainties Lenas buys, Aurelia sells! (98)
A lamprey of the largest size, and caught
Near howling Scylla, is to Virro brought :-
For oft as Auster seeks his cave, and flings
The cumbrous moisture from his dripping wings,
Forth flies the daring fisher, lured by gain,
While rocks oppose, and whirlpools threat in vain.
To thee they bring an eel, whose slender make
Bespeaks a near relation to the snake;
Or a frostbitten pike, who, day by day,
Through half the city's mud suck'd his vile way!
Would Virro deign to hear me, I could give

A few brief hints :-we look not to receive

98. Aurelia was a rich and childless old lady, whom Lenas, one of those legacy hunters who swarmed in Rome, endeavoured to wheedle out of a bequest in his favour, by costly presents of fish, &c. So far, indeed, she might be termed a "dealer in fine fish," that, preferring money to sur-mullets, she sent what was given her to market. Pliny tells an amusing story of her being obliged to tack a codicil to her will in favour of a more daring and apparently a more successful hæredipeta than Lenas-the detestable Regulus.