Part 47 (1/2)

_A._ No lentils bring to me, I like them not: For if one eats them, they do taint the breath.)--

Since then, on this account, these wise men guard against the lentils, at all events cause some bread to be given to us, with a little plain food; no expensive dishes, but any of those vulgar lentils, if you have them, or what is called lentil soup. And when every one laughed, especially at the idea of the lentil soup, he said, You are very ignorant men, you feasters, never having read any books, which are the only things to instruct those who desire what is good. I mean the books of the Silli of Timon the Pyrrhonian. For he it is who speaks of lentil soup, in the second book of his Silli, writing as follows:--

The Teian barley-cakes do please me not, Nor e'en the Lydian sauces: but the Greeks, And their dry lentil soup, delight me more Than all that painful luxury of excess.

For though the barley-cakes of Teos are preeminently good, (as also are those from Eretria, as Sopater says, in his Suitors of Bacchis, where he says--

We came to Eretria, for its white meal famed;)

and also, the Lydian sauces; still Timon prefers the lentil soup to both of them put together.

51. To this our admirable entertainer, Laurentius himself, replied, saying,--O you men who drive the dogs, according to the Jocasta of Strattis, the comic poet, who in the play ent.i.tled The Phnician Women, is represented as saying--

I wish to give you both some good advice: When you boil lentils, pour no perfume o'er them.

And Sopater, too, whom you were mentioning just now, in his Descent to h.e.l.l, speaks in these terms:--

Ulysses, king of Ithaca--'Tis perfume On lentils thrown: courage, my n.o.ble soul!

And Clearchus the Peripatetic philosopher, in his treatise on Proverbs, gives the saying, ”Perfume thrown on lentils;” as a proverb which my grandfather Varro also mentions, he, I mean, who was nicknamed Menippius. And many of the Roman grammarians, who have not had much intercourse with many Greek poets or historians, do not know where it is that Varro got his Iambic from. But you seem to me, O Cynulcus, (for you delight in that name, not using the name by which your mother has called you from your birth,) according to your friend Timon, to be a n.o.ble and great man, not knowing that the lentil soup obtained mention from the former Epicharmus, in his Festival, and in his Islands, and also from Antiphanes the comic poet; who, using the diminutive form, has spoken of it in his Wedding, under the following form of expression--

A little lentil soup (???????), a slice of sausage.

And Magnus immediately taking up the conversation, said,--The most universally excellent Laurentius has well and cleverly met this hungry dog on the subject of the lentil soup. But I, like to the Galatians of the Paphian Sopater, among whom it is a custom whenever they have met with any eminent success in war to sacrifice their prisoners to the G.o.ds,--

I too, in imitation of those men, Have vow'd a fiery sacrifice to the G.o.ds-- Three of these secretly enroll'd logicians.

And now that I have heard your company Philosophise and argue subtlely, Persisting firmly, I will bring a test, A certain proof of all your arguments: First smoking you. And if then any one When roasted shrinks and draws away his leg, He shall be sold to Zeno for his master For transportation, as bereft of wisdom.

52. For I will speak freely to them. If you are so fond of contentment, O philosopher, why do you not admire those disciples of Pythagoras, concerning whom Antiphanes says, in his Monuments--

Some miserable Pythagoreans came Gnawing some salt food in a deep ravine, And picking up such refuse in a wallet.

And in the play which is especially ent.i.tled the Wallet, he says--

First, like a pupil of Pythagoras, He eats no living thing, but peels some husks Of barley which he's bought for half an obol, Discolour'd dirty husks, and those he eats.

And Alexis says, in his Tarentines--

For, as we hear, the pupils of Pythagoras Eat no good meat nor any living thing, And they alone of men do drink no wine.

But Epicharides will b.i.t.c.hes eat; The only one of all the sect; but then He kills them first, and says they are not living.

And proceeding a little farther, he says--

_A._ Shreds of Pythagoras and subtleties And well-fill'd thoughts are their sufficient food.

Their daily meals are these--a simple loaf To every man, and a pure cup of water.

And this is all.

_B._ You speak of prison fare.

_A._ This is the way that all the wise men live.

These are the hards.h.i.+ps that they all endure.