Perde 3
[Textpart 1]
On that Boy on whom the Gods bestow servitude under a procurer, when they add a base occupation as well, assuredly do they, so far as I now understand in my mind,
A BOY
bestow upon him a great misfortune and miseries manifold. Just as this servitude has turned out to me, where I am set over duties great and small; nor am I able to find any admirer to love me, so that at length I might be fitted out in a little better guise.
770
Now this day is the birthday of this procurer. The procurer has made a determination, from the lowest to the highest, that if each one does not this day send him a present, he shall perish to-morrow with the greatest torments. Now, faith, I know not what to do in my line,
775
for, unless I shall send a present to the procurer this day, to-morrow must I swallow down fullers’ produce Fullers’ produce: As fullers used hands, feet, and sticks is beating the cloth, fructus fullonius would mean kicks and bruises.. And yet I cannot do that which they who can are wont to do. Alas! how little am I, even still for this vocation. And by my troth, now, to my misfortune how fearfully do I dread punishment.
780
If any one lays on If any one lays on: It is supposed by some that an indecent collusion is obscurely made in this line; it is, however, doubtful if such really is the fact. whose hand is too heavy, although they say that it generally is done amid great weeping, I think that I am able in some measure to keep my teeth closed. But I must keep close my lips and my talking, for see, my master is betaking himself home, and bringing a Cook with him.
785
[Textpart 2]
Those who call it the cook’s market, call it so foolishly; for ’tis not a cook’s market, but a thieves’ market. For if, upon oath, I were to seek out the worst of men, I couldn’t have brought a worse one than this fellow that I’m bringing, one, chattering, bragging, silly, and worthless.
790
BALLIO
Why, for this very reason Orcus has declined Orcus has declined: Orcus is an epithet of Pluto, the king of the Infernal regions, and, sometimes, of the place itself. to take him to himself, that he might be here to cook a banquet for the dead; for here he is able to cook a thing to please them alone.
795
A COOK.
If you thought of me in this manner that you are mentioning, why did you hire me?
BALLIO
From scarcity; there wasn’t another.
But why, if you were a cook, were you sitting in the market-place, you alone behind the rest?
800
A COOK.
I’ll tell you. By reason of the avarice of men have I become an inferior cook, not through my own inclination.
BALLIO
For what reason is that?
A COOK.
I’ll tell you. Because, in fact, directly people come to hire a cook,
no one enquires for him that’s the best and the highest priced: rather do they hire him that’s the lowest priced. Through this have I to-day been the only sitter in the market. Those wretched fellows are for a drachma a-piece; not any person is able to prevail on me to rise for less than a didrachm A didrachm: Literally, nummus, a coin or piece of money, which means a didrachm or piece of two drachmae in value, or about one shilling and sevenpence of our money..
805
I don’t cook a dinner too, like other cooks, who bring me up seasoned meadows of grass upon their dishes; who turn the guests into oxen, and supply the grass. This herbage, too, do they further season with other herbs: put in coriander, fennel, garlick, orage;
810
they add, too, sorrel, cabbage, beet, and spinach. In this they dissolve a pound weight of asafoetida. The roguish mustard is pounded, which makes the eyes of those that pound it drop tears before they have pounded it. These fellows, when they cook dinners, when they do season them, season them,
815
not with seasonings, but with vampyre owlsWith vampyre owls: Strigibus. By this expression he probably alludes to the drastic effect of these herbs on those who partook of them. Ovid, in the Sixth Book of the Fasti, has these words: There are ravenous fowls; not those which used to rob the mouth of Phineus at the board, but thence do they derive their origin. Large are their heads, fixed is their gaze for plunder are their beaks adapted; on their wings is a greyish colour, crooked talons are on their claws. By night they fly, and they seek the children unprotected by the nurse, and pollute their bodies dragged from their cradles. With their beaks they are said to tear the entrails of the sucklings, and they have their maws distended with the blood which they have swallowed. Striges are they called; and the origin of this name is the fact, that they are wont to screech in the dismal night. It is supposed by some persons that, under this name, the vampyre bat is alluded to. which eat out the bowels of the guests while still alive. Through this, in fact, it is, that people here live such short lives, inasmuch as they heap up these herbs of this sort in their stomachs, dreadful to be mentioned, not only to be eaten.
820
Herbage which the cattle eat not, men eat themselves.
825
BALLIO
What do you say? Do you use divine seasonings, by which you can prolong the life of men, you, who find fault with these other seasonings?
A COOK.
I proclaim it boldly;
