Apuleius: METAMORPHOSES

[1] Sic ille nequissimus carnifex contra me manus impias obarmabat. At ego praecipitante consilium periculi tanti praesentia nec exspectata diutina cogitatione lanienam imminentem fuga vitare statui, protinusque vinculo, quo fueram deligatus, abrupto curso me proripio totis pedibus, ad tutelam salutis crebris calcibus velitatus, ilicoque me raptim transcursa proxima porticu triclinio, in quo dominus aedium sacrificales epulas cum sacerdotibus deae cenitabat, incunctanter immitto, nec pauca rerum adparatus cibarii mensas etiam et ignes impetu meo collido atque disturbo. Qua rerum deformi strage paterfamilias commotus ut importunum atque lascivum me cuidam famulo curiose traditum certo aliquo loco clausum (iussit) cohiberi, ne rursum convivium placidum simili petulantia dissiparem.

[1] Thus that most wicked butcher was arming impious hands against me. But I, with counsel headlong under the presence of so great a peril and not awaiting long deliberation, resolved to avoid the impending butchery by flight, and forthwith, the bond with which I had been tied having been broken, I snatch myself away at a run with all my feet, striving with frequent kicks for the guardianship of my safety; and straightway, having swiftly traversed the nearest portico, I unhesitatingly thrust myself into the triclinium, in which the master of the house was dining on sacrificial banquets with the priests of the goddess, and by my rush I collide with and disturb not a few items of the apparatus of victuals, even the tables and the fires. By this unsightly wreck of things the paterfamilias, moved, (he ordered) that troublesome and wanton me, carefully handed over to a certain slave and shut up in some fixed place, to be restrained, lest I again dissipate the placid banquet by similar petulance.

Hoc astutulo commento scitule munitus et mediis lanii manibus ereptus custodela salutaris mihi gaudebam carceris.

Fortified by this sly little contrivance, skillfully secured and snatched from the very hands of the butcher, I rejoiced in the salutary custody of the prison.

Sed nimirum nihil Fortuna rennuente licet homini natu dexterum provenire nec consilio prudenti vel remedio sagaci divinae providentiae fatalis dispositio subuerti vel reformari potest. Mihi denique id ipsum commentum, quod momentariam salutem reperisse videbatur, periculum grande immo praesens exitium conflavit aliud.

But assuredly, with Fortune refusing, nothing is permitted to a man to turn out auspicious by birth; nor can the fatal disposition of divine Providence be subverted or reformed by prudent counsel or sagacious remedy. For me, finally, that very contrivance which seemed to have found a momentary safety kindled another great peril—nay, a present ruin.

[2] Nam quidam subito puer mobili ac trepida facile percitus, ut familiares inter se susurrabant, inrumpit tricliniumn suoque annuntia domino de proximo angiportu canem rabidam paulo ante per posticam impetu miro sese direxisse ardentisque prorsus furore venaticos canes invasisse ac dehinc proximum petisse pari saevitia nec postremum saltem ipsis hominibus pepercisse; nam Myrtilum mulionem et Hephaestionem cocum et Hypnophilum cubicularium et Apollonium medicum, immo vero et plures alios ex familia abigere temptantes variis morsibus quemque lacerasse, certe venenatis morsibus contacta non nulla iumenta efferari simili rabie.

[2] For a certain boy, suddenly, being mobile and tremulous, easily alarmed—as the household were whispering among themselves—bursts into the triclinium and announces to his master that from the nearby angiport a rabid dog a little before had directed itself through the postern with a marvelous rush and, burning outright with frenzy, had attacked the venatic hounds, and thereafter had made for the nearest people with equal savagery, nor, lastly, had it spared even the men themselves; for it had torn with various bites Myrtilus the muleteer and Hephaestion the cook and Hypnophilus the chamberlain and Apollonius the physician—nay, indeed, several others also of the household as they tried to drive it off; certainly some beasts of burden, touched by the venomous bites, were being driven wild with similar rabies.

Quae res omnium statim percussit animos, ratique me etiam eadem peste infectum ferocire arreptis cuiusce modi telis mutuoque ut exitium commune protelarent cohortati, ipsi potius eodem vaesaniae morbo laborantes, persecuntur. Nec dubio me lanceis illis vel venabulis immo vero et bipennibus, quae facile famuli subministraverant, membratim compilassent, ni respecto subiti periculi turbine cubiculum, in quo mei domini devertebant, protinus inrupissem. Tunc clausis obseratisque super me foribus obsidebant locum, quoad sine ullo congressionis suae periculo pestilentiae laetatis pervicaci rabie possessus ac peresus absumerer.

Which thing immediately struck the minds of all, and, thinking that I too, infected by the same pestilence, was raging, they, having snatched up weapons of whatever sort and mutually exhorted to protract the common doom, rather they themselves, laboring under the same disease of madness, pursue me. And without doubt they would have hacked me limb from limb with those lances or hunting-spears, nay indeed even with double-axes, which the household servants had readily supplied, if, with the whirlwind of sudden peril in view, I had not straightway burst into the bedchamber in which my masters were lodging. Then, with the doors shut and barred upon me, they besieged the place, until, without any danger from their engagement, they, rejoicing in the pestilence, might see me consumed, possessed and eaten away by pervicacious rabies.

Quo facto tandem libertatem nanctus, solitariae fortunae munus amplexus, super constratum lectum abiectus, post multum equidem temporis somnum humanum quievi.

With this done, at length having obtained liberty, embracing the boon of solitary fortune, flung upon the made-up bed, after indeed much time I rested in human sleep.

[3] Iamque clara die mollitie cubilis refota lassitudine vegetus exsurgo atque illos qui meae tutelae pervigiles excubias agitaverant ausculto de meis sic altercare fortunis: "Adhucine miserum istum asinum iugi furore iactari credimus?" "Immo vero iam virus increscente saevitia prorsum extinctum. Sic opinionis variae terminum ad exploratione conferunt ac de rima quadam prospiciunt sanum me atque sobrium otiose consistere. Iamque utro foribus patefactis plenius, an iam sim mansuetus, periclitantur.

[3] And now, with the day bright, my weariness refreshed by the softness of the couch, I rise vigorous, and I listen to those who had kept pervigil watches for my protection disputing thus about my fortunes: "Do we still believe that that wretched ass is being tossed by continual frenzy?" "Nay rather, now, with the venom’s savagery increasing, he is outright extinct." Thus they bring the termination of their various opinion to an exploration, and through a certain crack they look out and see me, sound and sober, standing at ease. And now, with both leaves of the door opened more fully, they test whether I am already tame.

Sed unus ex his, de caelo scilicet missus mihi sospitator, argumentum explorandae sanitatis meae commonstrat ceteris, ut aquae recentis completam pelvem offerent potui meo, ac si intrepidus et more solito sumens aquis adlibescentem, sanum me atque omni morbo scirent expeditum: contra vero si visum contactumque laticis vitarem ac perhorrescerem, pro conperto noxiam rabiem pertinaciter durare; hoc enim libris pristinis proditum observari solere.

But one of them, a savior, as it were, sent to me from heaven, points out to the others an argument for the exploration of my health: that they should proffer for my drinking a basin filled with fresh water, and that, if I, undaunted and in my accustomed manner, taking to the waters, they should know me to be sound and freed from every disease; but, on the contrary, if I should avoid and shudder at the sight and contact of the liquid, they should hold it as ascertained that the noxious rabies persists pertinaciously; for this, in pristine books, is reported to be wont to be observed.

[4] Isto placito vas immane confestim atque perlucidae de proximo petitae fonte, cunctantes adhoc, offerunt mihi: at ego sine ulla mora progressum etiam obvio gradu satis sitienter pronus et totum caput immergens salutares vere equidem illas aquas hauriebam. Iamque et plausus manum et aurium flexus et ductum capistri et quiduis aliud periclitantium placide patiebar, quoad contra vesanam eorum praesumptionem modestiam meam liquido cunctis adprobarem.

[4] By this decision they, still hesitating, immediately offer me a huge vessel, of very limpid water fetched from a nearby spring: but I, without any delay, advancing to meet it with a ready step, quite thirstily leaning forward and immersing my whole head, was indeed drawing in those truly salutary waters. And now I was placidly enduring the clapping of hands, the bending of the ears, the leading by the halter, and whatever else of those making trials, until, in opposition to their insane presumption, I might plainly demonstrate to all my gentleness.

Ad istum modum vitato duplici periculo, die sequenti rursum divinis exuviis onustus cum crotalis et cymbalis circumforaneum mendicabulum producor ad viam. Nec paucis casulis atque castellis oberratis devertimus ad quempiam pagum urbis opulentae quondam, ut memorabant incolae, inter semiruta vestigia conditum et hospitio proxumi stabuli recepti cognoscimus lepidam de adulterio cuiusdam pauperis fabulam, quam vos etiam cognoscatis volo.

In this way, the double danger avoided, on the following day again, laden with divine vestments, with rattles and cymbals, I am brought out onto the road for an itinerant mendicancy around the market. And, after wandering past not a few little cottages and small forts, we turn aside to a certain village of a once opulent city, as the inhabitants recounted, set amid half-ruined vestiges; and, received with the hospitality of the nearest stable, we learn a charming tale about the adultery of a certain poor man, which I also wish you to learn.

[5] Is gracili pauperie laborans fabriles operas praebendo parvis illis mercedibus vitam tenebat. Erat ei tamen uxorcula etiam satis quidem tenuis et ipsa, verum tamen postrema lascivia famigerabilis. Sed die quadam, dum matutino ille ad opus susceptum proficiscitur, statim latenter inrepit eius hospitium temerarius adulter.

[5] He, laboring under slender poverty, maintained his life by furnishing fabrile work, with those small wages. He had, however, a little wife—quite slender herself too—yet nevertheless notorious for utmost lasciviousness. But one day, while he set out in the morning to the work he had undertaken, straightway a rash adulterer stealthily crept into his lodging.

Ac dum Veneris conluctationibus securius operantur, maritus ignarus rerum ac nihil etiam tum tale suspicans inprovisus hospitium repetit. Iam clausis et obseratis foribus uxoris laudata continentia ianuam pulsat, sibilo etiam praesentiam suam denuntiante. Tunc mulier callida et ad huius modi flagitia perastutula tenacissimis amplexibus expeditum hominem dolio, quod erat in angulo semiobrutum, sed alias vacuum, dissimulanter abscondit, et patefactis aedibus adhuc introeuntem maritum aspero sermone accipit: "Sinice vacuus et otiosus insinuatis manibus ambulabis mihi nec obito consueto labore vitae nostrae prospicies et aliquid cibatui parabis?

And while they were busied more securely in the wrestlings of Venus, the husband, ignorant of the matter and suspecting nothing of the sort, unexpectedly returns to the lodging. Now, with the doors closed and bolted, he knocks at the door, praising his wife’s continence, with a whistle also announcing his presence. Then the woman, crafty and super-cunning for misdeeds of this kind, with most tenacious embraces stealthily hides the unencumbered man in a cask which was in the corner half-buried, but otherwise empty; and, the house having been opened, she greets her husband, still coming in, with harsh speech: “Sinicus, empty and idle, with your hands insinuated, will you be walking about for me, and will you not, the customary labor performed, look out for our livelihood and prepare something for sustenance?”

At ego misera pernox et perdia lanificio nervos meos contorqueo, ut intra cellulam nostram saltem lucerna luceat. Quanto me felicior Daphne vicina, quae mero et prandio matutino saucia cum suis adulteris volutatur!"

"But I, wretched, through the night and through the day twist my sinews at wool‑working, so that at least a lamp may shine within our little cell. How much happier than me is Daphne the neighbor, who, smitten by unmixed wine and a morning luncheon, wallows with her adulterers!"

[6] Sic confutatus maritus: "Et quid istic est?" ait "Nam licet forensi negotio officinator noster attentus ferias nobis fecerit, tamen hodiernae cenulae nostrae propexi. Vide sis ut dolium, quod semper vacuum, frustra locum detinet tantum et re vera praeter impedimentum conversationis nostrae nihil praestat amplius. Istud ego sex denariis cuidam venditavi, et adest ut dato pretio secum rem suam ferat.

[6] Thus the husband, confuted: "And what of that?" he said. "For although our workshop‑master, intent on forensic business, has made us a holiday, nevertheless I have provided for today’s little supper. See, please, how the cask, which is always empty, occupies space to no purpose and in fact, beyond being an impediment to our way of living, supplies nothing further. I have sold that for six denarii to a certain fellow, and he is here so that, once the price is given, he may carry off his property with him.

Quin itaque praecingeris mihique manum tantisper accommodas, ut exobrutum protinus tradatur emptori.?

Why then don’t you gird yourself and lend me your hand for a little while, so that, once it is dug out, it may at once be handed over to the purchaser.?

E re nata fallaciosa mulier temerarium tollens cachinnum: "Magnum" inquit "istum virum ac strenuum negotiatorem nacta sum, qui rem, quam ego mulier et intra hospitium contenta iam dudum septem denariis vendidi, minoris distraxit."

At this turn of affairs the deceitful woman, lifting a temerarious cachinnation, said: "A great man, this, and a strenuous negotiator I have gotten, who has sold for less the item which I, a woman and content within the hostelry, long since sold for seven denarii."

Additamento pretii laetus maritus: "Et quis est ille" ait "qui tanto praestinavit?" At illa: "Olim, inepte," inquit "descendit in dolium sedulo soliditatem eius probaturus."

With the addition to the price, the husband, happy, said: "And who is that man who has bargained for so much?" But she: "Once, simpleton," she said, "he went down into the cask, intending sedulously to test its solidity."

[7] Nec ille sermoni mulieris defuit, sed exurgens alacriter: "Vis" inquit "verum scire, mater familias? Hoc tibi dolium nimis vetustum est et multifariam rimis hiantibus quassum" ad maritumque eius dissimulanter conversus: "Quin tu, quicumque es, homuncio, lucernam" ait "actutum mihi expedis, ut erasis intrinsecus sordibus diligenter aptumne usui possim dinoscere, nisi nos putas aes de malo habere?" Nec quicquam moratus ac suspicatus acer et egregius ille maritus accensa lucerna: "Discere," inquit "frater, et otiosus adsiste, donec probe percuratum istud tibi repraesentem"; et cum dicto nudatus ipse delato numine scabiem vetustam cariosae testae occipit exsculpere. At vero adulter bellissimus ille pusio inclinatam dolio pronam uxorem fabri superincurvatus secure dedolabat.

[7] Nor did he fail the woman’s speech, but, springing up briskly: “Do you wish,” he says, “to know the truth, mistress of the household? This dolium of yours is too long-aged and, in many places, shattered with gaping cracks,” and, turning to her husband with feigned indifference: “Come now you, whoever you are, little man, will you at once get me a lamp,” he says, “so that, with the filth inside scraped away, I may carefully determine whether it is fit for use—unless you think we have money growing on trees?” And delaying not at all and suspecting nothing, that keen and excellent husband, the lamp lit: “Learn,” he says, “brother, and stand by at your ease, until I present that thing back to you well gone-over”; and with the word, he himself stripped, with the deity set down, begins to chisel out the ancient scurf of the decayed earthenware. But indeed the adulterer, that very handsome little lad, bending over, was securely “planing” the smith’s wife, who was bent forward over the dolium and prone.

Ast illa capite in dolium demisso maritum suum astu meretricio tractabat ludicre; hoc et illud et aliud et rursus aliud purgandum demonstrat digito suo, donec utroque opere perfecto accepit septem denariis calamitosus faber collo suo gerens dolium coactus est ad hospitium adulteri perferre.

But she, with her head thrust into the cask, was playfully handling her husband with meretricious cunning; she points out with her finger this and that and another and yet another thing to be cleansed, until, with both tasks completed, having received seven denarii, the calamitous smith, bearing the cask on his neck, was compelled to carry it to the adulterer’s lodging.

[8] Pauculis ibi diebus commorati et munificentia publica saginati vaticinationisque crebris mercedibus suffarcinati purissimi illi sacerdotes novum quaestus genus sic sibi comminiscuntur. Sorte unica pro casibus pluribus enotata consulentes de rebus variis plurimos ah hunc modum cavillatum. Sors haec erat:

[8] Having lingered there for a few days and, by public munificence, fattened, and stuffed with frequent fees for vaticination, those most pure priests thus contrive for themselves a new kind of profit. With a single lot, marked for multiple cases, they made sport, in this way, of very many consulting about various matters. This was the lot:

"ideo coniuncti terram proscindunt boves,
ut in futurum laeta germinent sata."

"therefore the conjoined oxen plow the earth,
so that for the future the sown fields may germinate luxuriantly."

Tum si qui matrimonium forte coaptantes interrogarent, rem ipsa responderi aiebant: iungendos conubio et satis liberum procreandis, si possessionem praestinaturus quaereret, merito boves [ut] et iugum et arva sementis florentia pronuntiari; si qui de profectione sollicitus divinum caperet auspicium, iunctos iam paratosque quadripedum cunctorum mansuetissimos et lucrum promitti de glebae germine; si proelium capessiturus vel latronum factionem persecuturus utiles necne processus sciscitaretur, addictam victoriam forti praesagio contendebat, quippe cervices hostium iugo subactum iri et praedam de rapinis uberrimam fructuosaque captum iri. Ad istum modum divinationis astu captioso conraserat non parvas pecunias.

Then, if any who were perhaps fitting together a matrimony should ask, they said the matter itself gave the answer: that they ought to be joined in connubial union, and that there would be enough children to be begotten; if one intending to secure a possession should inquire, that deservedly oxen and the yoke and fields flourishing for sowing were proclaimed; if someone anxious about a departure should take a divine auspice, that the gentlest of all quadrupeds were already yoked and ready, and that profit was promised from the germination of the clod; if a man about to engage in battle or to pursue a faction of robbers should ask whether the outcomes would be useful or not, he maintained that victory was adjudged by a strong omen, since the necks of the enemies would be brought under the yoke, and booty from their rapines, most abundant and fruitful, would be taken. In this fashion, by the captious astuteness of divination, he had scraped together no small sums of money.

[9] Sed adsiduis interrogationibus argumenti satietate iam defecti rursum ad viam prodeunt via tota, quam nocte confeceramus, longe peiorem, quidni? lacunosis incilibus voraginosam, partim stagnanti palude fluidam et alibi subluvie caenosa lubricam. Crebris denique offensaculis et assiduis lapsibus iam contusis cruribus meis vix tandem ad campestrem semitas fessus evadere potui.

[9] But, worn out now by satiety of the topic through their assiduous interrogations, we set out again to the road—the whole road which we had completed by night—far worse, why not? pitted with pool-filled ruts, a quagmire of sinkholes, in part fluid with stagnant marsh, and elsewhere slippery with muddy sullage. In short, with frequent little stumbling-blocks and continual slips, my legs now bruised, I could scarcely at last, exhausted, make my way out to the level footpaths.

Et ecce nobis repente de tergo manipulus armati supercurrit equitis aegreque cohibita equorum curruli rabie Philebum ceterosque comites eius involant avidi colloque constricto et sacrilegos impurosque compellantes interdum pugnis obverberant nec non manicis etiam cunctos coartant et identidem urgenti sermone comprimunt, promerent potius aureum cantharum, promerent auctoramentum illud sui sceleris, quod simulatione sollemnium, quae in operto factitaverant, ab ipsis pulvinaribus matris deum clanculo furati, prosus quasi possent tanti facinoris evadere supplicium tacita profectione, adhuc luce dubia pomerium pervaserint.

And behold, suddenly from behind a maniple of armed cavalry runs up upon us, and with the fury of their horses’ gallop scarcely restrained they swoop upon Philebus and his other companions, seize him by the neck, and, calling them sacrilegious and impure, from time to time beat them with their fists; they also constrain them all with manacles, and again and again press them with urgent speech, that they should rather produce the golden kantharos, produce that earnest-token of their crime, which, under the pretense of the solemn rites that they were wont to perform under cover, they had stealthily stolen from the very couches of the Mother of the gods, absolutely as though they could evade the punishment for so great a deed by a silent departure, in the still-doubtful light they had penetrated the pomerium.

[10] Nec defuit qui manu super dorsum meum iniecta in ipso deae, quam gerebam, gremio scrutatus reperiret atque incoram omnium aureum depromeret cantharum. nec isto saltem tam nefario scelere impuratissima illa capita confutari terrerive potuere, sed mendoso risu cavillantes: "En" inquiunt "indignae rei scaevitatem! Quam plerumque insontes periclitantur homines!

[10] Nor was there lacking one who, with his hand thrown over my back, rummaging in the very lap of the goddess which I was carrying, found and, before everyone, brought forth a golden tankard. Not even by this so nefarious a crime could those most impure heads be confuted or terrified; but, cavilling with a mendacious laugh, they say: "Behold the ill-starredness of an unworthy affair! How very often innocent men are put in peril!"

Propter unicum caliculum, quem deum mater sorori suae deae Syriae hospitale munus optulit, ut noxius religionis antistites ad discrimen vocari capitis."

"On account of a single little cup, which the Mother of the gods offered to her sister, the Syrian goddess, as a hospitable gift, that the priests of the religion should be summoned, as guilty, to the peril of a capital trial."

Haec et alias similis afannas frustra blaterantis eos retrorsus abducunt pagani statimque vinctos in Tullianum conpingunt cantharoque et ipso simulacro quod gerebam apud fani donarium redditis ac consecratis altera die productum me rursum voce praeconis venui subiciunt, septemque nummis carius quam prius me comparaverat Philebus quidam pistor de proximo castello praestinavit, protinusque frumento etiam coempto adfatim onustum per inter arduum scrupis et cuiusce modi stirpibus infestum ad pistrinum quod exercebat perducit.

These and other similar toils babbling in vain, the pagans lead them back, and straightway, bound, pack them into the Tullianum; and with the cantharus and the very simulacrum which I was carrying restored and consecrated at the fane’s donarium, on the next day, me brought forth again, they subject to sale by the voice of the crier; and for seven coins dearer than before, a certain Philebus, a baker from the nearest castellum, pre-purchased me, and immediately, grain too having been bought in plenty, he leads me, laden to satiety, through a steep way infested with sharp stones and with growths of every sort, to the pistrinum which he operated.

[11] Ibi complurium iumentorum multivii circuitus intorquebant molas ambage varia nec die tantum verum perperi etiam nocte prorsus instabili machinarum vertigine lucubrabant pervigilem farinam. Sed mihi, ne rudimentum servitii perhorrescerem scilicet, novus domitus loca lautia prolixe praebuit. nam et diem primum illum feriatum dedit et cibariis abundanter instruxit praesepium.

[11] There the multi-way circuits of several beasts of burden were twisting the millstones with varied ambages, and not by day only but even at night they were, with the utterly unsteady vertigo of the machines, lucubrating the ever-wakeful flour. But for me, so that I should not, to be sure, shudder at the rudiment of servitude, my new tamer generously provided sumptuous quarters; for he both gave that first day as a holiday and abundantly furnished the manger with provisions.

Nec tamen illa otii saginaeque beatitudo duravit ulterius, sed die sequenti molae quae maxima videbatur matutinus adstituor et illico velata facile propellor ad incurva spatia flexuosi canalis, ut in orbe termini circumfluentis reciproco gressu mea recalcans vestigia vagarer errore certo. Nec tamen sagacitatis ac prudentiae meae prorsus oblitus facilem me tirocinio disciplinae praebui; sed quanquam frequenter, cum inter homines agerem, machinas similiter circumrotari vidissem, tamen ut expertes et ignarus operis stupore mentito defixus haerebam, quod enim rebar ut minus aptum et huius modi ministerio satis inutilem me ad alium quempiam utique leviorem laborem legatum iri vel otiosum certe cibatum iri. Sed frustra sollertiam damnosam exercui.

Nor, however, did that beatitude of leisure and of fattening endure any further, but on the following day, in the morning, I am stationed at the mill which seemed the greatest, and immediately, veiled, I am easily driven to the curved spaces of the flexuous channel, so that, in the circle of the circumflowing boundary, with reciprocal step, treading back upon my own footprints, I might wander with a fixed error. Nor yet, by any means forgetful of my sagacity and prudence, did I refuse to make myself compliant for the apprenticeship of the discipline; but although I had frequently, when I lived among men, seen machines similarly whirled around, nevertheless, as if inexperienced and ignorant of the work, I was sticking there, fixed in feigned stupefaction, because I supposed that, as being less apt and quite useless for a ministry of this kind, I would be assigned to some other labor certainly lighter, or at least be fed in idleness. But I exercised a ruinous cleverness in vain.

Complures enim protinus baculis armati me circumsteterunt atque, ut eram luminibus obtectis securus etiamnunc, repente signo dato et clamore conserto, plagas ingerentes acervatim, adeo me strepitu turbulentant ut cunctis consiliis abiectis ilico scitissime taeniae spartae totus innixus discursus alacres obirem.

For several at once, armed with sticks, surrounded me; and, as I was, with my eyes covered, still untroubled, suddenly, when a signal was given and a shout raised, delivering blows in heaps, they so throw me into turmoil with their din that, all counsels cast aside, on the spot, leaning wholly upon the esparto thong, I most skillfully would execute brisk circuits.

[12] At subita sectae commutatione risum toto coetu commoveram. Iamque maxima diei parte transacta defunctum alioquin me, helcio sparteo dimoto, nexu machinae liberatum adplicant praesepio. At ego, quanquam eximie fatigatus et reflectione virium vehementer indiguus et prorsus fame perditus, tamen familiare curiositate attonitus et satis anxius, postposito cibo, qui copiosus aderat, inoptabilis officinae disciplinam cum delectatione quadam arbitrabar.

[12] But by the sudden change of my way of life I had stirred laughter through the whole assembly. And now, with the greatest part of the day already spent, me, otherwise done up, with the spartum halter removed, set free from the bond of the machine, they fasten to the manger. But I, although exceedingly fatigued and very much in need of a restoring of my forces and utterly ruined by hunger, yet, stunned by my familiar curiosity and quite anxious, putting off the food which was present in abundance, was considering with a certain delectation the discipline of that unchoosable workshop.

Dii boni, quales illic homunculi vibicibus lividis totam cutem depicti dorsumque plagosum scissili centunculo magis inumbrati quam obtecti, nonnulli exiguo tegili tantum modo pubem iniecti, cuncti tamen sic tunicati ut essent per pannulos manifesti, frontes litterati et capillum semirasi et pedes anulati, tum lurore deformes et fumosis tenebris vaporosae caliginis palpebras adesi atque adeo male luminanti et in modum pugilum, qui pulvisculo perspersi dimicant, farinulenta cinere sordide candidati.

Good gods, what little men there were, their whole skin depicted with livid weals and their backs welted, shaded rather than covered by a rent patchwork-cloak, some with only a tiny covering thrown over the pubes, yet all so “tunicked” that through the little rags they were manifest, their foreheads lettered and their hair half-shaven and their feet ringed; then, disfigured with sallow lurdor and with eyelids gnawed by the smoky darkness of vaporous gloom and thus ill-seeing, and, in the manner of boxers who, sprinkled with dust, fight, sordidly whitened with mealy ash.

[13] Iam de meo iumentario contubernio quid vel ad quem modum memorem? Quales illi muli senes vel cantherii debiles. Circa praesepium capita demersi contruncabant moles palearum, cervices cariosa vulnerum putredine follicantes, nares languidas adsiduo pulsu tussedinis hiulci, pectora copulae spartae tritura continua exulcerati, costas perpetua castigatione ossium tenus renudati, ungulas multivia circumcursione in enorme vestigium porrecti totumque corium veterno atque scabiosa macie exasperati.

[13] Now about my pack-animal contubernium, how, or in what manner, am I to recount it? What aged mules and feeble geldings they were! About the manger, with their heads plunged in, they were hacking down masses of chaff; their necks blistering with the carious putrescence of wounds; their nostrils languid, gaping from the incessant beat of coughing; their chests ulcerated by the continual attrition of a coupling of esparto; their ribs by perpetual castigation laid bare down to the bones; their hooves, from many-road running about, stretched into an enormous footprint; and their whole hide made rough by inveterate torpor and by scabrous emaciation.

Talis familiae funestum mihi etiam metuens exemplum veterisque Lucii fortunam recordatus et ad ultimam salutis metam detrusus summisso capite maerebam. Nec ullum uspiam cruciabilis vitate solacium aderat, nisi quod ingentia mihi curiositate recreabat, dum praesentiam meam parvi facientes libere, quae volunt, omne et agunt et loquuntur. Nec inmerito priscae poeticae divinus auctor apud Graios summae prudentiae virum monstrare cupiens multarum civitatium obitu et variorum populorum cognito summas adeptum virtutes cecinit.

Fearing for myself as well such a funereal example from the household, and recalling the fortune of the former Lucius, and driven down to the farthest goal of safety, with head lowered I was grieving. Nor was there anywhere any solace for my cruciating life, except that an immense curiosity refreshed me, while, making little of my presence, they freely both do and speak whatever they wish. Nor without merit did the divine author of ancient poetry among the Greeks, wishing to show a man of highest prudence, sing that by the going-about of many cities and by knowing diverse peoples he had attained the highest virtues.

Nam et ipse gratas gratias asino meo memini, quod me suo celatum tegmine variisque fortunis exercitatum, etsi minus prudentem, multiscium reddidit.

For I too remember grateful thanks to my ass, because, concealed by his own covering and exercised by various fortunes, he rendered me, though less prudent, many‑knowing.

[14] Fabulam denique bonam prae ceteris, suave comptam ad arvis vestras adferre decrevi, et en occipio. Pistor ille, qui me pretio suum fecerat, bonus alioquin vir et adprime modestus, pessimam et ante cunctas mulieres longe deterrimam sortitus coniugam poenas extremas tori larisque sustinebat, ut hercules eius vicem ego quoque tacitus frequenter ingemescerem. Nec enim vel unum vitium nequissimae illi feminae deerat, sed omnia prorsus ut in quandam caenosam latrinam in eius animum flagitia confluxerant: saeva scaeva viriosa ebriosa pervicax pertinax, in rapinis turpibus avara, in sumptibus foedis profusa, inimica fidei, hostis pudicitiae.

[14] Finally, I have resolved to bring before others a good fable, sweetly adorned, to your ears, and lo, I begin. That baker who had made me his own by purchase—a good man otherwise and very modest—having drawn as his consort a most wicked woman, far the worst before all women, was enduring extreme penalties of bed and hearth, so that, by Hercules, I too often silently groaned for his lot. For not even a single vice was lacking to that most nefarious female, but absolutely all flagitious crimes had flowed together into her soul as into a certain muddy latrine: savage, ill‑omened, man‑mad, ebrious, pervicacious, pertinacious; greedy in shameful rapine, profuse in foul expenses, an enemy to faith, a foe to chastity.

Tunc spretis atque calcatis divinis numinibus in viceram certae religionis mentita sacrilega praesumptione dei, quem praedicaret unicum, confictis observationibus vacuis fallens omnis homines et miserum maritum decipiens matutino mero et continuo corpus manciparat.

Then, with the divine numina spurned and trampled underfoot, in place of true religion she, with sacrilegious presumption, feigning a god whom she proclaimed as the only one, with fabricated and empty observances deceiving all people and deluding her wretched husband, had enslaved her body to morning neat wine and continually.

[15] Talis illa mulier miro me persequebatur odio. Nam et antelucio, recubans adhuc, subiungi machinae novicium clamabat asinum et statim, ut cubiculo primum processerat, insistens iubebat incoram sui plagas mihi quam plurima irrogari, et cum tempestivo prandio laxarentur iumenta cetera, longe tardius applicari praesagio iubebat. Quae saevitia multo mihi magis genuinam curiositatem in suos mores ampliaverat.

[15] Such a woman persecuted me with wondrous hatred. For even before daybreak, while still reclining, she would shout that the novice ass be yoked to the machine; and immediately, as soon as she had first stepped out of her chamber, standing over me she would order that very many blows be imposed upon me in her own presence; and when, at the timely luncheon, the other draught-animals were released, she would, on a presage, order that I be put to the yoke far later. This savagery had far more amplified in me an inborn curiosity about her ways.

Nam et assiduo plane commeantem in eius cubiculum quendam sentiebam iuvenem, cuius et faciem videre cupiebam ex summo studio, si tamen velamentum capitis libertatem tribuisset meis aliquando luminibus. Nec enim sollertia defuisset ad detergenda quoquo modo pessimae feminae flagitia. Sed anus quaedam stuprorum sequestra et adulterorum internuntia de die cotidie inseparabilis aderat.

For I plainly perceived that a certain young man was assiduously frequenting her bedroom, whose face too I was most eager to see with the utmost zeal, if only the covering of my head had at some time granted freedom to my eyes. For ingenuity would not have been lacking to wipe away, by whatever means, the flagitious deeds of that worst woman. But a certain old woman, a procuress of debaucheries and an inter-nuntia of adulterers, was present in broad daylight every day, inseparable.

Cum qua protinus ientaculo ac dehinc vino mero mutuis vicibus velitata scaenas fraudulentas in exitium miserrimi mariti subdolis ambagibus construebat. At ego, quanquam graviter suscensens errori Photidis, quae me, dum avem fabricat, perfecit asinum, isto tamen vel unico solacio aerumnabilis deformitatis meae recreabar, quod auribus grandissimis praedibus cuncta longule etiam dissita facillime sentiebam.

With her, forthwith, after a breakfast and thereafter with unmixed wine, skirmishing by mutual turns, she was constructing fraudulent scenes, by sly circumlocutions, for the destruction of her most wretched husband. But I, although grievously resenting the error of Photis—who, while she was fashioning a bird, finished me as an ass—was nevertheless refreshed by this, even if the single solace of my burdensome disfigurement: that, with my very large ears as endowments, I could most easily perceive everything even rather far off and scattered.

[16] Denique die quadam timidae illius amiculae sermo talis meas adfertur auris: "De isto quidem, mi erilis tecum ipsa videris, quem sine meo consilio pigrum et formidolosum familiarem istum sortita es, qui insuavis et odiosi mariti tui caperratum supercilium ignaviter perhorrescit ac per hoc amoris languidi desidia tuos volentes amplexus discruciat. Quanto melior Philesitherus adulescens et formosus et liberalis et strenuus et contra maritorum inefficaces diligentias constantissimus! Dignus hercules solus omnium matronarum deliciis perfrui, dignus solus coronam nuper in quendam zelotypum maritum eximio studio commento est.

[16] Finally, on a certain day the talk of that timid little girlfriend is brought to my ears as follows: "As for that fellow, my mistress, that is your affair—since without my counsel you have drawn for yourself that sluggish and timorous intimate—who cravenly shudders at the goatish brow of your unsavory and odious husband, and thereby, by the sloth of a languid love, tortures your willing embraces. How much better is Philesitherus, a young man handsome and liberal and strenuous, and, against the ineffectual watchfulness of husbands, most constant! By Hercules, worthy—he alone—of enjoying the delights of all matrons; worthy alone to carry off the crown—he has lately, with exceptional ingenuity, devised a stratagem against a certain jealous husband.

Audi denique amatorum diversus ingenium compara.

Hear, at last; compare the diverse disposition of lovers.

[17] Nosti quendam Barbarum nostrae civitatis decurionem, quam Scorpionem prae morum acritudine vulgus appellat. Hic uxorem generosam et eximia formositate praeditam mira custodela munitam domi suae quam cautissime cohibebat."

[17] You know a certain Barbarus, a decurion of our city, whom the common crowd calls “Scorpion” because of the acerbity of his morals. He kept at his home his wife—noble and endowed with exceptional beauty—fortified with marvelous custody, and he restrained her as cautiously as possible."

Ad haec ultima pistoris illa uxor subiciens: "Quidni?" inquit "Novi diligenter. Areten meam condiscipulam memoras." "Ergo" inquit anus "nostri totam Philesitheri et ipsius fabulam?" "Minime gentium," inquit "sed nosse valde cupio et oro, ordine mihi singula retexe."

To these last things the baker’s wife, subjoining, said: "Why not?" she said, "I know her thoroughly. You are mentioning Arete, my fellow-student." "Then," said the old woman, "the whole fable/story of our Philesitherus and of herself?" "By no means at all," she said, "but I very much desire to know and I beg: reweave for me each particular in order."

Nec commorata illa sermocinatrix immodica sic anus incipit: "Barbarus iste cum necessariam profectionem pararet pudicitiamque carae coniugis conservare summa diligentia cuperet, servulum suum Myrmecem fidelitate praecipua cognitum secreto commonet suaeque dominae custodelam omnem permittit, carcerem et perpetua vincula, mortem denique illam lentam de fame comminatur, si quisquam hominum vel in transitu digito tenus eam contigisset, idque deierans etiam confirmat per omnia divina numina. Ergo igitur summo pavore perculsum Myrmecem acerrimum relinquens uxori secutorem, securam dirigit profectionem.

And not delaying, that immoderate chatterer, the old woman, thus begins: "That Barbarus, when he was preparing a necessary departure and desired with the highest diligence to preserve the chastity of his dear spouse, privately admonishes his little slave Myrmex, known for outstanding fidelity, and entrusts to him the whole custody of his mistress; he threatens prison and perpetual chains, and finally that slow death by starvation, if any person whatsoever, even in passing, had touched her so much as with a finger; and he even confirms this by swearing through all the divine numina. Therefore, leaving Myrmex—struck with the utmost fear—as the keenest attendant upon his wife, he proceeds on his journey secure."

Tunc obstinato animo vehementer anxius Myrmex nec usquam dominam suam progredi sinebat et lanificio domestico districtam inseparabilis adsidebat ac tantum necessario vespertini lavacri progressu adfixus atque conglutinatus, extremas manu prendens lacinias, mira sagacitate commissae provinciae fidem tuebatur.

Then Myrmex, resolute in mind and intensely anxious, would not allow his mistress to go anywhere at all, and, while she was occupied with domestic wool‑work, he sat at her side inseparable; and only on the necessary outing for the evening bath, affixed and, as it were, glued to her, grasping with his hand the outermost fringes of her garment, he with wondrous sagacity maintained the fidelity of the province entrusted to him.

[18] Sed ardentem Philesitheri vigilantiam matronae nobilis pulchritudo latere non potuit. Atque hac ipsa potissimum famosa castitate et insignis tutelae nimietate instinctus atque inflammatus, quidvis facere, quidvis pati paratus, ad expugnandam tenacem domus disciplinam totis accingitur viribus. Certusque fragilitatis humanae fidei, et quod pecuniae cunctae sint difficultates perviae auroque soleant adamantinae etiam perfringi fores, opportune nanctus Myrmecis solitatem, ei amorem suum aperit et supplex eum medellam cruciatui deprecatur: nam sibi statutam decretamque mortem proximare, ni maturius cupito potiatur; nec eum tamen quicquam in re facili formidare debere, quippe cum vespera solus fide tenebrarum contectus atque absconditus introrepere et intra momentum temporis remeare posset.

[18] But the noble matron’s pulchritude could not lie hidden from the burning vigilance of Philesitherus. And, instigated and inflamed chiefly by this very thing—her famous chastity and the excess of remarkable tutelage—ready to do anything, to suffer anything, he girds himself with all his forces to storm the household’s tenacious discipline. Sure of the fragility of human good faith, and that for money all difficulties are passable and that even adamantine doors are wont to be broken through by gold, having opportunely found Myrmex’s solitude, he discloses to him his love and as a suppliant beseeches him for a remedy for his torment: for that a fixed and decreed death is drawing near to him unless he more speedily obtain the desired object; nor, however, ought he to fear anything in an easy matter, since at evening, alone, under the cover of darkness, concealed and hidden, he could creep in and return within a moment of time.

His et huiusce modi suadelis validum addens ad (postremum) cuneum, qui rigentem prorsus servi tenacitatem violenter diffinderet; porrecta enim manu sua demonstrat ei novitate nimia candentes solidos aureos, quorum viginti quidem puellae destinasset, ipsi vero decem libenter offerret.

Adding to these persuasions and others of this sort a strong wedge at the (last), which might violently split the servant’s utterly rigid tenacity; for, with his own hand outstretched he shows him golden solidi glowing with extraordinary newness, of which he had indeed destined twenty for the girl, but to him he would gladly offer ten.

[19] Exhorruit Myrmex inauditum facinus et occlusis auribus effugit protinus. Nec auri tamen splendor flammeus oculos ipsius exire potuit, sed quam procul semotus et domum celeri gradu pervectus, videbat tamen decora illa monetae lumina et opulentam praedam iam tenebat animo miroque mentis salo et cogitationum dissentione misellus in diversas sententias carpebatur ac distrahebatur: illic fides, hic lucrum, illic cruciatus, hic voluptas. Ad postremum tamen formidinem mortis vicit aurum.

[19] Myrmex shuddered at the unheard-of crime and, with his ears closed, fled immediately. Yet the fiery splendor of the gold could not depart from his eyes; but although far removed and borne home at a swift pace, nevertheless he kept seeing those comely lights of the coinage and already held the opulent prey in his mind; and by a wondrous surge of mind and a dissension of thoughts the poor wretch was being torn and dragged apart into divergent judgments: there faith, here profit, there torments, here pleasure. At last, however, gold conquered the dread of death.

Nec saltem spatio cupido formonsae pecuniae leniebatur, sed nocturnas etiam curas invaserat pestilens avaritia, ut quamvis erilis eum comminatio domi cohiberet, aurum tamen foras evocaret. Tunc, devorato pudore et dimota cunctatione, sic ad aures dominae mandatum perfert. Nec a genuina levitate descivit mulier, sed exsecrando metallo pudicitiam suam protinus auctorata est.

Nor was his avidity for beauteous money soothed even by a span of time, but pestilent avarice had invaded even his nocturnal cares, so that, although his mistress’s threat kept him confined at home, yet the gold summoned him forth outside. Then, shame swallowed down and hesitation removed, thus he carries a mandate to the mistress’s ears. Nor did the woman swerve from her native levity, but for the execrable metal she straightway put her pudicity up for sale.

Ita gaudio perfusus advolat ad suae fidei praecipitium Myrmex, non modo capere verum saltem contigere quam exitio suo viderat pecuniam cupiens, et magnis suis laboribus perfectum desiderium Philesithero laetitia percitus nuntiat statimque destinatum praemium reposcit, et tenet nummos aureos manus Myrmecis, quae nec aereos norat.

Thus, suffused with joy, Myrmex flies to the precipice of his fidelity, eager not only to seize but at least to touch that money which he had seen to his own destruction; and, smitten with joy, he announces to Philesitherus that by his great labors his desire has been perfected, and at once he demands the destined reward; and the hands of Myrmex hold golden coins—hands that had not even known bronze ones.

[20] Iamque nocte promota solum perducit ad domum probeque capite contectum amatorem strenuum infert adusque dominae cubiculum. Commodum novis amplexibus Amore rudi litabant, commodum prima stipendia Veneri militabant nudi milites: et contra omnium opinionem captata noctis opportunitate inprovisus maritus adsistit suae domus ianuam. Iam pulsat, iam clamat, iam saxo fores verberat et ipsa tarditate magis magisque suspectus dira comminatur Myrmeci supplicia.

[20] And now, with night advanced, she leads him alone to the house, and, with his head well covered, brings the strenuous lover right up to the mistress’s bedchamber. Just then they were propitiating with new embraces raw Love; just then, naked soldiers, they were serving their first campaigns to Venus: and, against everyone’s expectation, seizing the opportunity of the night, the unlooked-for husband stands at the door of his own house. Now he knocks, now he shouts, now with a stone he batters the doors, and, by the very delay growing more and more suspicious, he threatens dire punishments for Myrmex.

At ille repentino malo perturbatus et misera trepidatione ad inopiam consilii deductus, quod solum poterat, nocturnas tenebras sibi causabatur obsistere quin clavem curiose absconditam reperiret. Interdum Philesitherus cognito strepitu raptim tunicam iniectus sed plane prae turbatione pedibus intectis procurrit cubiculo. Tunc Myrmex tandem clave pessulis subiecta repandit fores et recepit etiam tunc fidem deum boantem dominum eoque propere cubiculum petente clandestino transcursu dimittit Philesitherum.

But he, disturbed by the sudden misfortune and, in wretched trepidation, brought down to a lack of counsel, alleged—as the only thing he could—that the nocturnal darkness was standing in his way so that he could not find the key carefully hidden. Meanwhile Philesitherus, the noise having been recognized, hastily threw on a tunic, but plainly, from perturbation, ran out of the bedroom with his feet uncovered. Then Myrmex, at last, with the key thrust beneath the bolts, flung back the doors and admitted his master, even then bellowing “by the faith of the gods,” and, as he quickly made for the bedroom, by a clandestine dash he let Philesitherus slip away.

Quo iam pro limite liberato securus sui clausa domo rursum se reddidit quieti.

Whereupon, with the coast now cleared, secure of himself, the house shut, he once more returned to rest.

[21] Sed dum prima luce Barbarus procedit cubiculo, videt sub lectulo soleas incognitas, quibus inductus Philesitherus inrepserat, suspectisque a re nata quae gesta sunt, non uxori non ulli familiarum cordolio patefacto, sublatis iis et in sinum furtim absconditis, iusso tantum Myrmece per conservos vincto forum versus adtrahi, tacitos secum mugitus iterans rapidum dirigit gressum, certum solearum indicio vestigium adulteri posse se perfacile indipisci. Sed ecce per plateam dum Barbarus vultu turgido subductisque superciliis incedit iratus ac pone eum Myrmex vinculis obrutus, non quidem coram noxae prehensus, conscientia tamen pessima permixtus lacrimis uberibus ac postremis lamentationibus inefficacem commovet miserationem, opportune Philesitherus occurrens, quanquam diverso quodam negotio destinatus, repentina tamen facie permotus, non enim deterritus, recolens festinationis suae delictum et cetera consequenter suspicatus sagaciter extemplo sumpta familiari constantia, dimotis invadit cum summo clamore Myrmecem pugnisque malas eius clementer obtundens: "At te," inquit "nequissimum et periurum caput, dominus iste tuus et cuncta caeli numina, quae deierando temere devocasti, pessimum pessime perduit, qui de balneis soleas hesterna die mihi furatus es: dignus hercules, dignus, qui et ista vincula conteras et insuper carceris etiam tenebras perferas." Hac opportuna fallacia vigorati iuvenis inductus immo sublatus et ad credulitatem delapsus Barbarus, postliminio domum regressus, vocato Myrmece, soleas illas offerens et ignovit ex animo et, uti domino redderet, cui surripuerat, suasit."

[21] But while at first light Barbarus proceeds from the bedchamber, he sees beneath the little bed unfamiliar sandals, by which Philesitherus, having put them on, had crept in; and, suspecting from the thing arisen what had been done, disclosing with heart‑sorrow to neither his wife nor any of the household, he lifted them, hid them furtively in his bosom, and, only having ordered Myrmex to be dragged toward the forum bound by his fellow‑slaves, he, repeating mute lowings to himself, directs his step swiftly, sure by the clue of the sandals that he could very easily track out the adulterer’s footprint. But look, while through the street Barbarus, with swollen countenance and brows drawn up, advances in anger, and behind him Myrmex overwhelmed with chains, not indeed caught in the crime face‑to‑face, yet, with most evil conscience, mingled with copious tears and terminal lamentations, stirs an ineffective pity, opportunely Philesitherus meeting them—although destined for some different business—yet moved by the sudden sight, and not daunted, recalling the fault of his own haste and suspecting the rest accordingly, shrewdly at once, assuming his customary composure, having pushed aside the bystanders, rushes upon Myrmex with the greatest clamor and, with his fists gently bruising his cheeks: “But you,” he says, “most wicked and perjured head, this master of yours and all the numina of heaven, whom by rash oath‑swearing you invoked, utterly, most utterly undo you—you who stole from the baths my sandals yesterday: worthy, by Hercules, worthy, to wear out these chains and, besides, to endure even the darkness of prison.” By this timely stratagem of the spirited young man, Barbarus—induced, nay carried away, and slipping into credulity—having returned home again, with Myrmex summoned, bringing forth those sandals, forgave him from his heart, and urged him to render them to the master from whom he had filched them.

[22] Hactenus adhuc anicula garriente suscipit mulier: "Beatam illam, quae tam constantis sodalis libertate fruitur! At ego misella molae etiam sonum et ecce illius scabiosi asini faciem timentem familiarem incidi."

[22] Thus far, while the little old woman was still garrulous, the woman takes up: "Blessed is she who enjoys the liberty of so constant a companion! But I, poor wretch, even at the sound of the mill am afraid, and behold I have stumbled upon the familiar face of that mangy ass."

Ad haec anus: "Iam tibi ego prope suasum et confirmatum animi amatorem illum alacrem vadimonium sistam" et insuper condicta vespertina regressione cubiculo facessit.

To this the old woman: "Now I, for you, will have that lively lover almost persuaded and confirmed in mind; I will have him appear on recognizance," and moreover, with a vespertine return appointed, she withdraws to the bedroom.

At pudica uxor statim cenas saliares comparat, vina pretiosa defaecat, pulmenta recentia tuccetis temperat. Mensam largiter instruit; denique, ut dei cuiusdam adventus, sic exspectatur adulteri. Nam et opportune maritus fortis apud naccam proximum cenitabat.

But the modest wife at once prepares Salian dinners, clarifies choice wines, tempers fresh relishes with ragouts. She lays the table generously; finally, as for the advent of some god, so the adulterer is awaited. For opportunely the stout husband was dining at the cookshop next door.

Ergo igitur metis die propinquante helcio tandem absolutus refectuique secure redditus non tam hercules laboris libertaten gratulabar quam quod revelatis luminibus libere iam cunctas facinorosae mulieris artes prospectare poteram. Sol ipsum quidem delapsus Oceanum subterrenas orbis plagas inluminabat, et ecce nequissimae anus adhaerens lateri temerarius adulter adventat, puer admodum et adhuc lubrico genarum splendore conspicuus, adhuc adulteros ipse delectans. Hunc multis admodum saviis exceptum mulier cenam iubet paratam adcumbere.

Therefore, with the turning-posts of the day drawing near, at last freed from the harness-collar and securely returned for refreshment, not so much, by Hercules, did I congratulate myself on freedom from toil as that, my lights revealed, I could now freely look out upon all the arts of the criminal woman. The Sun itself, having slipped down into Ocean, was illumining the subterranean tracts of the globe, and behold—clinging to the side of the most wicked old woman—the rash adulterer approaches, very much a boy and still conspicuous with the sleek brilliance of his cheeks, still himself delighting adulterers. Him, welcomed with very many kisses, the woman bids to recline at the dinner that had been prepared.

[23] Sed ut primum occursoriam potionem et inchoatum gustum extremis labiis contingebat adulescens, multo celerius opinione rediens maritus adventat. Tunc uxor egregia diras devotiones in eum deprecata et crurum ei fragium amborum ominata, exsangui formidine trepidantem adulterum alveo ligneo, quo frumenta contusa purgari consuerant, temere propter iacenti suppositum abscondit, ingenitaque astutia dissimulato tanto flagitio, intrepidum mentita vultum, percontatur de marito cur utique contubernalis artissimi deserta cenula praematurus adforet. At ille dolenti prorsum animo suspirans adsidue:

[23] But as soon as the young man touched with the very tips of his lips the greeting-cup and the initial sip, the husband comes arriving, returning much more swiftly than expected. Then the “excellent” wife, having invoked dire imprecations upon him and having ominously foretold a fracture of both his legs, hid the adulterer, trembling with bloodless terror, in a wooden trough, by which bruised grains were accustomed to be cleansed, rashly thrust beneath the one lying close at hand; and with innate astuteness, with so great a scandal dissembled, feigning an untroubled face, she inquires of her husband why, indeed, with the cozy little supper of his very closest comrade deserted, he should be present prematurely. But he, sighing continually with a thoroughly grieving spirit:

"Nefarium" inquit "et extremum facinus perditae feminae tolerare nequiens fuga me proripui. Hem qualis, dii boni, matrona, quam fida quamque sobria turpissimo se dedecore foedavit! Iuro per istam ego sanctam Cererem me nunc etiam meis oculis de tali muliere minus credere."

"Nefarious," he said, "and an extreme crime of a ruined woman; unable to tolerate it, I snatched myself away in flight. Ah, what sort, good gods, of matron—how faithful and how sober—has fouled herself with the most shameful disgrace! I swear by that holy Ceres that even now I can scarcely believe my own eyes about such a woman."

Hic instincta verbis mariti audacissima uxor noscendae rei cupiens non cessat optundere, totam prorsus a principio fabulam promeret. Nec destitit, donec eius voluntati succubuit maritus et sic, ignarus suorum, domus alienae percenset infortunium:

Here, the most audacious wife, instigated by her husband’s words and desirous of learning the matter, does not cease to badger him, to bring out the whole tale entirely from the beginning. Nor did she desist, until the husband succumbed to her will, and thus, ignorant of his own, he recounts in detail the misfortune of another’s house:

[24] Contubernalis mei fullonis uxor, alioquin servati pudoris ut videbatur femina, quae semper secundo rumore gloriosa larem mariti pudice gubernabat, occulta libidine prorupit in adulterum quempiam. Cumque furtivos amplexus obiret adsidue, ipso illo denique momento quo nos lauti cenam petebamus, cum eodem illo iuvene miscebatur in venerem. Ergo nostra repente turbata praesentia, subitario ducta consilio, eundem illum subiectum contegit viminea cavea, quae fustium flexu tereti in rectum aggerata cumulum lacinias circumdatas suffusa candido fumo sulpuris inalbabat, eoque iam ut sibi videbatur tutissime celato mensam nobiscum secura participat.

[24] The wife of my tent‑mate, a fuller—otherwise, as it seemed, a woman of preserved modesty—who, always glorious with favorable rumor, modestly steered her husband’s hearth, burst forth, through hidden libido, into an adulterer of some sort. And as she was assiduously pursuing furtive embraces, at that very moment when we, washed, were making for dinner, she was mingling in Venus with that same youth. Therefore, disturbed by our sudden presence and led by a sudden counsel, she covers that same man, placed beneath, with a wicker cage, which, by the smooth bending of staves piled upright into a framework, used to whiten the draped rags, being suffused with the bright white smoke of sulfur; and with him now, as it seemed to her, most safely concealed, she, secure, shares the table with us.

Interdum acerrimo gravique odore sulpuris iuvenis inescatus atque obnubilatus intercluso spiritu diffluebat, utque est ingenium vivacis metalli, crebras ei sternutationes commovebat.

At times, by the very sharp and heavy odor of sulfur, the young man, ensnared and overclouded, with his breath cut off, was swooning; and, as is the nature of the vivacious metal, it stirred up frequent sternutations in him.

[25] Atque ut primum e regione mulieris pone tergum eius maritus acceperat sonum sternutationis — quod enim putaret ab ea profectum — solito sermone salutem ei fuerat imprecatus et iterato rursum et frequentato saepius, donec rei nimietate commotus quod res erat tandem suspicatur. Et impulsa mensa protenus remotaque cavea producit hominem crebros anhelitus aegre reflantem inflammatusque indignatione contumeliae, gladium flagitans, iugulare moriturum gestiebat, ni respecto communi periculo vix eum ab impetu furioso cohibuissem adseverans brevi absque noxa nostri suapte inimicum eius violentia sulpuris periturum. Nec suadela mea, sed ipsius rei necessitate lenitus, quippe iam semivivum, illum in proximum deportat angiportum.

[25] And as soon as, just opposite the woman, behind her back, her husband had caught the sound of the sneezing — for he thought it had proceeded from her — he had, in the customary phrasing, wished her health, and repeated it again, and made it frequent again and again, until, stirred by the excess of the matter, he at last suspects what the case was. And with the table pushed aside and the cage removed forthwith, he brings out the man, weakly breathing back frequent gasps, and, inflamed with indignation at the contumely, demanding a sword, he was eager to slit the throat of the man, destined to die, unless, having regard to the common danger, I had scarcely restrained him from a furious onset, asserting that soon, without harm to us, by the very violence of the sulfur his enemy would perish. And not by my persuasion, but softened by the necessity of the thing itself — since he was already half-alive — he carries that man into the nearest alleyway.

Tum uxorem eius tacite suasi ac denique persuasi, secederet paululum atque ultra limen tabernae ad quampiam tantisper (deverteret) familiarem sibi mulierem, quoad spatio fervens mariti sedaretur animus, qui tanto calore tantaque rabie perculsus non erat dubius aliquid etiam de re suaque coniuge tristius profecto cogitare. Talium contubernalis epularum taedio fugatus larem reveni meum."

Then I quietly advised his wife and at last persuaded her to withdraw a little and, beyond the threshold of the tavern, to (turn aside) for a little while to some woman familiar to her, until, with an interval, the burning spirit of the husband might be calmed, who, smitten by so great a heat and such rabies, was surely considering something more grievous even concerning the affair and his own spouse. A table-companion of such feasts, driven away by weariness, I returned to my hearth."

[26] Haec recensete pistore iam dudum procax et temeraria mulier exsecrantibus fullonis illius detestabatur uxorem: illam perfidam, illam impudicam, denique universi sexus grande dedecus, quae suo pudore postposito torique genialis calcato foedere larem mariti lupanari maculasset infamia iamque perdita nuptae dignitate prostitutae sibi nomen adsciverit; addebat et talis oportere vivas exuri feminas. Et tamen taciti vulneris et suae sordidae conscientiae commonita, quo maturius stupratorem suum tegminis cruciatu liberaret, identidem suadebat maritum temperius quieti decedere. At ille utpote intercepta cena, profugus et prorsus ieiunus, mensam potius comiter postulabat.

[26] As the baker was just now recounting these things, the woman—long since forward and reckless—was with execrations detesting the wife of that fuller: calling her perfidious, calling her impudent, in fine a great disgrace of the universal sex, who, with her modesty set aside and the pact of the nuptial couch trampled underfoot, had stained her husband’s hearth with the infamy of a brothel, and now, her dignity as a bride lost, had assumed for herself the name of a prostitute; she added that such women ought to be burned alive. And yet, admonished by the silent wound and by her own sordid conscience, in order the more quickly to free her debaucher from the torture of the covering, she kept urging her husband again and again to retire to rest earlier. But he, his supper having been intercepted—driven off and downright fasting—was rather, courteously, asking for a table.

Adponebat ei propere, quamvis invita, mulier quippini destinatam alii. Sed mihi penita carpebantur praecordia et praecedens facinus et praesentem deterrimae feminae constantiam cogitanti mecumque sedulo deliberabam, si quo modo possem detectis ac revelatis fraudibus auxilium meo perhibere domino illumque, qui ad instar testudinis alveum succubabat, depulso tegmine cunctis palam facere.

She promptly set before him, though unwilling, what was, to be sure, destined for another. But my inmost heart was being plucked, as I thought of the preceding crime and the present constancy of that most depraved woman, and I diligently debated with myself whether in any way I could, the frauds detected and revealed, offer aid to my master and make that man, who was, after the fashion of a tortoise, lying beneath the trough, with the covering driven off, manifest to all.

[27] Sic erili contumelia me cruciatum tandem caelesti respexit providentia. Nam senex claudus, cui nostra tutela permissa fuerat, universa nos iumenta, id hora iam postulante, ad lacum proximum bibendi causa gregatim prominabat. Quae res optatissimam mihi vindictae subministravit occasionem.

[27] Thus, tormented by my mistress’s contumely, at last celestial Providence looked upon me. For a lame old man, to whose tutelage we had been entrusted, was leading forth all of us beasts of burden, the hour now demanding it, in a herd to the nearest lake for the sake of drinking. This matter supplied to me the most longed-for opportunity for vengeance.

Namque praetergrediens observatos extremos adulteri digitos, qui per angustias cavi tegminis prominebant, obliquata atque infesta ungula compressos usque ad summam minutiem contero, donec intolerabili dolore commotus, sublato flebili clamore repulsoque et abiecto alveo, conspectui profano redditus scaenam propudiosae mulieris patefecit.

For as I was passing by, having noticed the adulterer’s farthest finger-tips, which were protruding through the narrowings of the hollow covering, with my hoof turned aside and hostile I crush them, pressed down to the utmost minuteness, until, stirred by intolerable pain, with a tearful cry raised and the tub pushed back and flung away, restored to profane view he laid open the scene of the shameful woman.

Nec tamen pistor damno pudicitiae magnopere commotus exsangui pallore trepidantem puerum serena fronte et propitiata facie commulcens incipit: "Nihil triste de me tibi, fili, metuas. Non sum barbarus nec agresti morum squalore praeditus nec ad exemplum naccinae truculentiae sulpuris te letali fumo necabo ac ne iuris quidem severitate lege de adulteris ad discrimen vocabo capitis tam venustum tamque pulchellum puellum, sed plane cum uxore mea partiario tractabo. Nec herciscundae familiae sed communi dividundo formula dimicabo, ut sine ulla controversia vel dissensione tribus nobis in uno conueniat lectulo.

Nor yet was the baker, greatly moved by the damage to chastity, but soothing the boy, trembling with a bloodless pallor, with a serene brow and a propitiated countenance, he begins: "Do not fear anything grim from me, my son. I am not barbarous, nor endowed with the rustic squalor of manners, nor, after the example of truculent sulphur, will I kill you with lethal fume; nor even by the severity of the law concerning adulterers will I summon to the peril of the head so winsome and so pretty a little boy, but plainly I will deal by shares with my wife. I will not contend by the formula of herciscundae familiae, but by that of communi dividundo, so that without any controversy or dissension it may suit the three of us in one little bed."

Nam et ipse semper cum mea coniugem tam concorditer vixi ut ex secta prudentium eadem nobis ambobus placerent. Sed nec aequitas ipsa patitur habere plus auctoritatis uxorem quam maritum."

For I myself also have always lived with my wife so concordantly that, according to the sect of the prudent, the same things were pleasing to us both. But not even equity itself allows a wife to have more authority than a husband."

[28] Tali sermonis blanditie cavillatum deducebat ad torum nolentem puerum, sequentem tamen; et pudicissima illa uxore alterorsus disclusa solus ipse cum puero cubans gratissima corruptarum nuptiarum vindicta perfruebatur. Sed cum primum rota solis lucida diem peperit, vocatis duobus e familia validissimis, quam altissime sublato puero, ferula nates eius obverberans: "Tu autem," inquit "tam mollis ac tener admodum puer, defraudatis amatoribus aetatis tuae flore, mulieres adpetis atque eas liberas et conubia lege sociata conrumpis et intempestivum tibi nomen adulteri vindicas?"

[28] By such blandishment of speech he used to lead to the bed the boy, unwilling but following nevertheless, cavilled-at; and with that most modest wife shut apart on the other side, he himself alone, lying with the boy, enjoyed to the full the most pleasing vengeance for corrupted nuptials. But as soon as the bright wheel of the sun brought forth the day, having summoned two of the strongest from the household, with the boy lifted as high as possible, beating his buttocks with a ferule, he said: "But you, so soft and very tender a boy, with the lovers of your own age defrauded of the flower of your age, you go after women and you corrupt free women and marriages joined by law, and you claim for yourself the untimely name of adulterer?"

His et pluribus verbis compellatum et insuper adfatim plagis castigatum forinsecus abicit. At ille adulterorum omnium fortissimus, insperata potitus salute, tamen nates candidas illas noctu diuque dirruptus, maerens profugit. Nec setius pistor ille nuntium remisit uxori eamque protinus de sua proturbavit domo.

Having been addressed with these and more words, and moreover chastised to the full with blows, he casts him out of doors. But he, the most valiant of adulterers, having obtained unhoped-for safety, yet with those snowy-white buttocks torn night and day, grieving, fled. Nor any the less did that baker send a message back to his wife and straightway drove her out from his own house.

[29] At illa praeter genuinam nequitiam contumelia etiam, quamvis iusta, tamen altius commota atque exasperata ad armillum revertit et ad familiares feminarum artes accenditur magnaque cura requisitam veteratricem quandam feminam, quae devotionibus ac maleficiis quiduis efficere posse credebatur, multis exorat precibus multisque suffarcinat muneribus, alterum de duobus postulans, vel rursum mitigato conciliari marito vel, si id nequiverit, certe larva vel aliquo diro numine immisso violenter eius expugnari spiritum. Tunc saga illa et divini potens primis adhuc armis facinerosae disciplinae suae velitatur et vehementer offensum mariti flectere atque in amorem impellere conatur animum. Quae res cum ei sequius ac rata fuerat proveniret, indignata numinibus et praeter praemii destinatum compendium contemptione etiam stimulata ipsi iam miserrimi mariti incipit imminere capiti umbramque violenter peremptae mulieris ad exitium eius instigare.

[29] But she, besides her inborn wickedness, also by the affront—although just—nevertheless more deeply stirred and exasperated, returns to the little jar, and is kindled to the familiar arts of women; and with great care she seeks out a certain experienced old woman, who was believed to be able to effect anything by devotions and malefices, and with many entreaties she coaxes her and stuffs her with many gifts, asking one of two things: either that, her husband being softened anew, he be reconciled, or, if she could not achieve that, at least that by a larva or some dire numen sent in, his spirit be violently taken by storm. Then that sorceress, powerful in divination, with the first weapons of her criminal discipline still, skirmishes, and tries to bend the much-offended mind of the husband and impel it into love. And when this matter was turning out for her worse and not as assured, indignant at the numina and, besides the slated gain of the fee, also spurred on by contempt, she now begins to hang over the head of the most miserable husband himself, and to incite the shade of a woman violently slain to his destruction.

[30] Sed forsitan lector scrupulosum reprehendes narratum meum sic argumentaberis: "Vnde autem tu, astutule asine, intra terminos pistrini contentus, quid secreto, ut adfirmas, mulieres gesserint scire potuisti?". Accipe igitur quem ad modum homo curiosus iumenti faciem sustinens cuncta quae in perniciem pistoris mei gesta sunt cognovi. Diem ferme circa mediam repente intra pistrinum mulier reatu miraque tristitie deformis apparuit, flebili centunculo semiamicta, nudis et intectis pedibus, lurore buxeo macieque foedata, et discerptae comae semicanae sordentes inspersu cineris pleramque eius anteventulae contegebant faciem. Haec talis manu pistori clementer iniecta, quasi quippiam secreto conlocutura, in suum sibi cubiculum deducit eum et abducta fore quam diutissime demoratur.

[30] But perhaps, reader, you will reprehend my scrupulous narration and argue thus: "And how, pray, you sly little ass, confined within the bounds of the mill, were you able to know what the women did in secret, as you affirm?" Receive then how, a curious man sustaining the visage of a beast of burden, I came to know all the things that were done to the ruin of my baker. About the middle of the day a woman suddenly appeared inside the mill, disfigured by the taint of guilt and by a remarkable sadness, half-clad in a mournful patchwork-cloak, with bare and uncovered feet, befouled by a boxwood-yellow sallow and by emaciation; and her torn, half-white hair, filthy with a sprinkling of ash, with wind-blown forelocks, covered most of her face. Such as she was, with her hand gently laid upon the baker, as though she were going to confer something in secret, she leads him into her own little chamber, and, having drawn him off, remains there as long as ever she can.

Sed cum esset iam confectum omne frumentum, quod inter manus opifices tractaverant, necessarioque peti deberet aliud, servuli cubiculum propter adstantes dominum vocabant operique supplementum postulabant. Atque ut illis (iterum et) saepicule [et inter] vocaliter clamantibus nullus respondit dominus, iam forem pulsare validius, et, quod diligentissime fuerat oppessulata, maius peiusque aliquid opinantes, nisu valido reducto vel diffracto cardine, tandem patefaciunt aditum. Nec uspiam reperta illa muliere vident e quodam tigillo constrictum iamque exanimem pendere dominum, eumque nodo cervicis absolutum detractumque summis plangoribus summisque lamentationibus atque ultimo lavacro procurant, peractisque feralibus officiis, frequenti prosequente comitatu, tradunt sepulturae.

But when all the grain which the craftsmen had handled at their hands was now finished, and another necessarily had to be sought, the little servants, standing near the bedroom, were calling the master and were demanding a supplement for the work. And when, as they (again and) quite often [and in-between] were crying out aloud, no master answered them, now they began to knock at the door more strongly; and, since it had been most carefully bolted, supposing something graver and worse, by a strong effort—with the bolt drawn back or the hinge broken—they at last open an entry. And with that woman found nowhere, they see the master hanging, now lifeless, fastened from a certain little beam; and him, released from the knot at his neck and taken down, with the highest beatings of the breast and the greatest lamentations, and with the last washing they provide; and when the funeral offices have been completed, with a thronging company accompanying, they consign him to burial.

[31] Die sequenti filia eius accurrit e proxumo castello, in quod quidem denupserat, maesta atque crines pendulos quatiens et interdum pugnis obtundens ubera, quae nullo quidem domus infortunium nuntiante cuncta cognorat, sed ei per quietem obtulit sese flebilis patris sui facies adhuc nodo revincta cevice, eique totum novercae scelus aperuit de adulterio, de maleficio, et quem ad modum larvatus ad inferos demeasset. Ea cum se diutino plangore cruciasset, concursu familiarum cohibita tandem pausam luctui fecit. Iamque nono die rite completis apud tumulum sollemnibus familiam supellectilemque et omnia iumenta ad hereditariam deducit auctionem.

[31] On the following day his daughter ran in from the nearest castle, into which indeed she had been married, sad and shaking her hanging hair and at times bruising her breasts with her fists. Although no one had announced the house’s misfortune, she had learned everything: for in her sleep there presented itself the mournful face of her father, his neck still bound with the knot, and it revealed to her the whole crime of the stepmother—about the adultery, about the malefice (sorcery), and in what manner, as a specter (larva), he had gone down to the dead below. When she had racked herself with prolonged lamentation, restrained at last by the crowding of the household folk, she made a pause to her mourning. And now, on the ninth day, the solemnities having been duly completed at the tomb, she conducts the household, the furniture, and all the beasts of burden to an inheritance-auction.

Tunc unum larem varie dispergit venditionis incertae licentiosa fortuna. Me denique ipsum pauperculus quidam hortulanus comparat quinquaginta nummis, magno, ut aiebat, sed ut communi labore victum sibi quaereret.

Then the wanton Fortune of an uncertain sale variously scatters one household. Finally a certain rather poor gardener buys me myself for 50 coins—at a great price, as he said—but so that by common labor he might procure his livelihood.

[32] Res ipsa mihi poscere videtur ut huius quoque serviti mei disciplinam exponam. Matutino me multis holeribus onustum proxumam civitatem deducere consuerat dominus atque ibi venditoribus tradita merce, dorsum insidens meum, sic hortum redire. Ac dum fodiens, dum irrigans, ceterosque incurvus labore deservit, ego tantisper otiosus placita quiete recreabar.

[32] The matter itself seems to me to demand that I set forth the discipline of this my servitude as well. In the morning my master was accustomed to conduct me, laden with many vegetables, to the nearest city; and there, the merchandise having been delivered to the vendors, seated on my back, he would thus return to the garden. And while, digging, irrigating, and, bent with toil, he devoted himself to the other tasks, I meanwhile, idle, was refreshed by agreeable quiet.

Sed ecce siderum ordinatis ambagibus per numeros dierum ac mensuum remeans annus post mustulentas autumni delicias ad hibernas Capricorni pruinas deflexerat, et adsiduis pluviis nocturnisque rorationibus sub dio et intecto conclusus stabulo continuo discruciabar frigore, quippe cum meus dominus prae nimia paupertate ne sibi quidem nedum mihi posset stramen aliquod vel exiguum tegimen parare, sed frondoso casulae contentus umbraculo degeret. Ad hoc matutino lutum nimis frigidum gelusque praeacuta frusta nudis invadens pedibus enicabar ac ne suetis saltem cibariis ventrem meum replere poteram. Namque et mihi et ipso domino cena par ac similis oppido tamen tenuis aderat, lactucae veteres et insuaves illae, quae seminis enormi senecta ad instar scoparum in amaram caenosi sucus cariem exolescunt.

Sed behold, with the stars’ ordered meanderings the year, returning through the numbers of days and months, after the must‑sweet delicacies of autumn had veered to the winter frosts of Capricorn; and with continual rains and nocturnal dews, shut up under the open sky and in an unroofed stall, I was being continuously excruciated by cold, since my master, out of excessive poverty, could provide not even for himself, much less for me, any straw or even a scanty covering, but, content with the leafy umbrage of his hut, passed his life there. In addition, assailing with bare feet the morning mud, too cold, and the frost’s sharply pointed clods, I struggled to exhaustion, and I could not even fill my belly with the usual victuals. For for both me and the master himself there was a dinner equal and similar, yet very meager indeed—those old and unpalatable lettuces which, by the enormous senescence of seed, grow, in the likeness of brooms, into a bitter decay of filthy juice.

[33] Nocte quadam paterfamilias quidam e pago proximo tenebris inluniae caliginis impeditus et imbre nimio madefactus atque ob id ab itinere directo cohibitus ad hortulum nostrum iam fesso equo deverterat, receptusque comiter pro tempore licet non delicato necessario tamen quietis subsidio, remunerari benignum hospitem cupiens, promittit ei de praediis suis sese daturum et frumenti et olivi aliquid et amplius duos vini cados. Nec moratus meus sacculo et utribus vacuis secum adportatis nudae spinae meae residens ad sexagesimum stadium profectionem comparat. Eo iam confecto viae spatio pervenimus ad praedictos agros ibique statim meum dominum comis hospes opipari prandio participat.

[33] One night a certain paterfamilias from a nearby village, hindered by the darkness of moonless gloom and drenched by excessive rain, and on that account kept from the direct road, had turned aside to our little garden with his horse already weary; and, having been received courteously with aid of rest suited to the time—though not delicate—yet necessary, wishing to remunerate his kindly host, he promises that he will give him from his estates some grain and olive oil, and, besides, two jars of wine. Not delaying, my master, with a small bag and empty skins brought along with him, seated upon my bare spine, makes ready a departure for sixty stadia. With that span of the road now completed we come to the aforesaid fields, and there at once the affable host makes my master share in a sumptuous luncheon.

Iamque iis poculis mutuis altercantibus mirabile prorsus evenit ostentum. Vna de cetera cohorte gallina per mediam cursitans aream clangore genuino velut ovum parere gestiens personabat. Eam suus dominus intuens: "O bona" inquit "ancilla et satis fecunda, quae multo iam tempore cotidianis nos partubus saginasti.

And now, while they were wrangling back and forth with mutual cups, a truly marvelous portent occurred. One hen from the rest of the cohort, running to and fro through the middle of the courtyard, was making resounding noise with her genuine clucking, as if eager to lay an egg. Her master, looking at her, said: "O good handmaid and quite fecund, you who for a long time now have fattened us with your daily births."

Nunc etiam cogitas, ut video, gustulum nobis praeparare." Et "heus", inquit "puer calathum fetui gallinaceo destinatum angulo solito collocato." Ita, uti fuerat iussum, procurante puero gallina consuetae lecticulae spreto cubili ante ipsius pedes domini praematurum sed magno prorsus futurum scrupulo partum. Non enim ovum, quod scimus, illud; sed pinnis et unguibus et oculis et voce etiam perfectum edidit pullum, qui matrem suam coepit continuo comitari.

“Now you are even thinking, as I see, to prepare a little tidbit for us.” And “hey,” he says, “boy, place the basket destined for the hen’s fetus (brood) in the usual corner.” Thus, as had been ordered, with the boy attending, the hen—spurning the bed of her accustomed little litter—before her master’s very feet delivered a premature birth, but one destined to be a very great scruple. For it was not, as we know, an egg; rather, she produced a chick perfected with feathers and claws and eyes and even a voice, which immediately began to accompany its mother.

[34] Nec eo setius longe maius ostentum et quod omnes merito perhorrescerent exoritur. sub ipsa enim mensa, quae reliquias prandii gerebat, terra dehiscens imitus largissimum emicuit sanguinis fontem; hic resultantes uberrimae guttae mensam cruore perspergunt. Ipsoque illo momento quod stupore defixi mirantur ac trepidant divina praesagia, concurrit unus e cella vinaria nuntians omne vinum, quod olim diffusum fuerat, in omnibus doliis ferventi calore et prorsus ut igne copioso subdito rebullire.

[34] Nevertheless for all that, a far greater portent arises, and one at which all would rightly shudder. For beneath the very table, which was bearing the leftovers of lunch, the earth, yawning from within, shot forth a most copious fountain of blood; here the most bountiful rebounding drops bespatter the table with gore. And at that very moment, while fixed in stupor they marvel and tremble at the divine presages, one runs in from the wine-cellar announcing that all the wine which had once been drawn off, in all the casks, was seething with fervent heat and positively bubbling back as if with a copious fire set beneath.

Visa est interea mustela etiam mortuum serpentem forinsecus mordicus adtrahens, et de ore pastoricii canis virens exsiluit ranula, ipsumque canes qui proximus consistebat aries adpetitum unico morsu strangulavit. Haec tot ac talia ingenti pavore domini illius et familiae totius ad extremum stupore deiecerant animos, quid prius quidve posterius, quid magis quid minus numinum caelestium leniendis minis quid et qualibus procuraretur hostiis.

Meanwhile a weasel was seen also dragging a dead serpent from outside in its teeth, and from the mouth of a shepherd’s dog a little green froglet sprang forth; and that very dog, with a single bite, strangled the ram which was standing nearest, having attacked it. So many and such prodigies cast down the spirits of that master and of the whole household with immense fear, and at last with stupefaction—what should be done first or later, what more or less, to soothe the menaces of the celestial numina, and by what, and with what kinds of, victims it should be propitiated.

[35] Adhuc omnibus exspectatione taeterrimae formidinis torpidis accurrit quidam servulus magnas et postremas domino illi fundorum clades adnuntians. Namque is adultis iam tribus liberis doctrina instructis et verecundia praeditis vivebat gloriosus. His adulescentibus erat cum quodam paupere modicae casulae domino vetus familiaritas.

[35] Meanwhile, while all were numb with the expectation of a most hideous fear, there ran up a certain servant-lad, announcing to that master the great and final disasters of the estates. For he lived in glory, with three children now grown, equipped with learning and endowed with modesty. With these youths there was an old familiarity with a certain poor man, owner of a modest little cottage.

At enim casulae parvulae conterminos magnos et beatos agros possidebat vicinus potens et dives et iuvenis (splendidae) prosapiae (sed) maiorum gloria male utens pollensque factionibus et cuncta facile faciens in civitate; (hic) hostili modo vicini tenuis incursabat pauperiem pecua trucidando, boves abigendo, fruges adhuc immaturas obterendo. Iamque tota frugalitate spoliatum ipsis etiam glebulis exterminare gestiebat finiumque inani commota questione terram totam sibi vindicabat. Tunc agrestis, verecundus alioquin, avaritia divitis iam spoliatus, ut suo saltem sepulchro paternum retineret solum, amicos plurimos ad demonstrationem finium trepidans eximie corrogarat.

But indeed a powerful and rich and young neighbor, of (splendid) lineage, possessed contiguous great and blessed fields to the very small cottage; (but) making ill use of the glory of his ancestors, strong in factions and doing everything easily in the city; (he) in hostile fashion kept raiding the poverty of his poor neighbor, by slaughtering the cattle, driving off the oxen, trampling down the crops still unripe. And now, with all his frugality stripped away, he was eager to banish him even from the very clods, and with an empty question stirred up about the boundaries he was claiming the whole land for himself. Then the rustic, modest otherwise, already despoiled by the rich man’s avarice, so that at least for his own sepulcher he might retain his father’s soil, in great trepidation had mustered very many friends for the demonstration of the boundaries.

Aderant inter alios tres illi fratres cladibus amici quantulum quantulum ferentes auxilium.

Among others there were present for that man three brothers, friends in his disasters, bringing very, very little help.

[36] Nec tamen ille vaesanus tantillum praesentia multorum civium territus vel confusus, licet non rapinis, saltem verbis temperare voluit, sed illis clementer expostulantibus fervidosque eius mores blanditiis permulcentibus repente suam suorumque carorum salutem quam sanctissime adiurans adseverat parvi se pendere tot mediatorum praesentiam, denique vicinum illum auriculis per suos servulos sublatum de casula longissime statimque proiectum iri. Quo dicto insignis indignatio totos audientium pertemptavit animos. Tunc unus et tribus fratribus incunctanter et paulo liberius respondit frustra eum suis opibus confisum tyrannica superbia comminari, cum alioquin pauperes etiam liberali legum praesidio de insolentia locupletium consueverint vindicari.

[36] Nor yet was that insane man in the least terrified or confounded by the presence of many citizens; he did not wish to restrain himself—if not from rapine, then at least in words—but while they gently expostulated and, with blandishments, soothed his fervid temper, suddenly, most solemnly swearing by the safety of himself and his dear ones, he avers that he sets little value on the presence of so many mediators, and that, finally, that neighbor would be lifted by the ears by his little servants out of his cottage and straightway cast very far away. At this saying a marked indignation pervaded the whole minds of the hearers. Then one of the three brothers, without delay and somewhat more freely, replied that he, relying on his own wealth, was threatening in tyrannical superbia in vain, since otherwise even the poor have been wont to be vindicated, by the liberal protection of the laws, from the insolence of the wealthy.

Quod oleum flammae, quod sulpur incendio, quod flagellum Furiae, hoc et iste sermo truculentiae hominis nutrimento fuit. Iamque ad extremam insaniam vecors, suspendium sese et totis illis et ipsis legibus mandare proclamans, canes pastoricios, villaticos feros atque immanes, adsuetos abiecta per agros essitare cadavera, praeterea etiam transeuntium viatorum passivis morsibus alumnatos, laxari atque in eorum exitium inhortatos immitti praecepit. Qui simul signo solito pastorum incensi atque inflammati sunt, furiosa rabie conciti et latratibus etiam absonis horribiles eunt in homines eosque variis adgressi vulneribus distrahunt ac lacerant nec fugientibus saltem compercunt, sed eo magis inritatiores secuntur.

What oil is to flame, what sulfur to a conflagration, what a scourge to a Fury, this too that speech was as nourishment to the man’s truculence. And now, witless to the extremity of insanity, proclaiming that he consigns to hanging himself and all those men and the laws themselves, he ordered the shepherd-dogs and the villatic, feral and monstrous hounds—accustomed to forage for corpses cast away through the fields, and moreover even nurtured by the passive bites of passing wayfarers—to be loosed and, urged on to their destruction, to be let in. Who, as soon as at the customary signal of the herdsmen they were incensed and inflamed, stirred by furious rabies and, terrible even with dissonant barkings, go upon the men and, having assailed them with various wounds, they tear and mangle them; nor do they at least spare those fleeing, but, the more irritated, they pursue them.

[37] Tunc inter confertam trepidae multitudinis stragem e tribus iunior offenso lapide atque obtunsis digitis terrae prosternitur saevisque illis et ferocissimis canibus instruit nefariam dapem; protenus enim nancti praedam iacentem miserum illum adolescentem frustatim discerpunt. Atque ut eius letalem ululatum cognovere ceteri fratres, accurrunt maesti suppetias obvolutisque lacinia laevis manibus lapidum crebris iactibus propugnare fratri atque abigere canes adgrediuntur. Nec tamen eorum ferociam vel conterere vel expugnare potuere, quippe cum miserrimus adulescens ultima voce prolata, vindicarent de pollutissimo divite mortem fratris iunioris, ilico laniatus interisset.

[37] Then, amid the packed carnage of the panicked multitude, the youngest of the three, having struck against a stone and with his fingers blunted, is thrown to the ground, and for those savage and most ferocious dogs he furnishes a nefarious banquet; for forthwith, having found the prey lying there, they tear that miserable adolescent to pieces, bit by bit. And when the other brothers recognized his deathly ululation, they run up sorrowful to bring succor, and, their smooth hands wrapped with the lappet of their cloaks, they set about to defend their brother with frequent castings of stones and to drive off the dogs. Yet they were not able either to crush or to overcome their ferocity, since the most wretched youth—his last voice uttered, that they should avenge upon the most polluted rich man the death of the younger brother—straightway, torn to pieces, had perished.

Tunc reliqui fratres non tam hercules desperata quam ultro neglecta sua salute contendunt ad divitem atque ardentibus animis impetuque vaesano lapidibus crebris in eum velitantur. At ille cruentus et multis ante flagitiis similibus exercitatus percussor iniecta lancea duorum alterum per pectus medium transadegit. Nec tamen peremptus ac prorsus exanimatus adulescens ille terrae concidit; nam telum transvectum atque ex maxima parte pone tergum elapsum soloque nisus violentia defixum rigore librato suspenderat corpus.

Then the remaining brothers, not so much—by Hercules—despairing of their own safety as of their own accord neglecting it, press toward the rich man, and with ardent spirits and a mad impetus they skirmish against him with frequent stones. But he, blood-stained, an assassin trained by many former flagitious deeds of the same sort, with a spear cast drove one of the two through the very middle of the chest. Nor, however, did that youth, slain and utterly lifeless, fall to the earth; for the missile, having passed through and for the greatest part slipped out behind his back, and, braced in the ground, fixed fast by the violence, with its rigidity balanced, had suspended the body.

Sed et quidam de servulis procerus et validus sicario ille ferens auxilium lapide contorto tertii illius iuvenis dexterum brachium longo iactu petierat, sed impetu casso per extremos digitos transcurrens lapis contra omnium opinionem deciderat innoxius.

But also one of the little servants, tall and strong, bringing aid to that sicarius, had aimed with a whirled stone, with a long cast, at the right arm of that third youth; but with its impetus vain, the stone, running along the extreme digits, contrary to everyone’s expectation had fallen harmless.

[38] Non nullam tamen sagacissimo iuveni proventus humanior vindictae speculam subministravit. Ficta namque manus usae debilitate sic crudelissimum iuvenem compellat: Fruere exitio totius nostrae familiae et sanguine trium fratrum insatiabilem tuam crudelitatem pasce et de prostratis tuis civibus gloriose triumpha, dum scias, licet privato suis possessionibus paupere fines usque et usque proterminaveris, habiturum te tamen vicinum aliquem. Nam haec etiam dextera, quae tuum prorsus amputasset caput, iniquitate fati contusa decidit." Quo sermone, alioquin exasperatus, furiosus latro rapto gladio sua miserrimum iuvenem manu perempturus invadit avidus.

[38] Nevertheless, some more humane turn of events supplied to the most sagacious youth a lookout for revenge. For his feigned hand, with a practiced weakness, thus addresses the most cruel youth: “Enjoy the ruin of our whole household and feed your insatiable cruelty on the blood of three brothers, and triumph gloriously over your fellow-citizens laid low—while you know that, though, as a private person poor in his own possessions, you may have pushed your boundaries farther and farther, you will still have someone for a neighbor. For this right hand too—which would utterly have cut off your head—by the inequity of fate fell crushed.” At this speech, being otherwise exasperated, the frenzied brigand, with sword snatched up, greedily rushes in to destroy with his own hand the most miserable youth.

Nec tamen sui molliorem provocat; quippe insperato et longe contra eius opinionem resistens iuvenis complexu fortissimo arripit eius dexteram magnoque nisu ferro librato multis et crebris ictibus impuram elidit divitis animam et, ut accurrentium etiam familiarium manu se liberaret, confestim adhuc inimici sanguine delibuto mucrone gulam sibi prorsus exsecuit.

Nor yet does he arouse a gentler mood in him toward himself; for, unexpectedly and far contrary to his expectation, the youth, resisting, with a very strong embrace seizes his right hand and, with great effort, the steel poised, with many and frequent blows drives out the impure soul of the rich man; and, that he might also free himself from the hand of the kinsmen running up, immediately, with the blade still smeared with the enemy’s blood, he utterly cut his own throat.

Haec erant quae prodigiosa praesagaverant ostenta, haec quae miserrimo domino fuerant nuntiata. Nec ullum verbum ac ne tacitum quidem fletum tot malis circumventus senex quivit emittere, sed adrepto ferro, quo commodum inter suos epulones caseum atque alias prandii partes diviserat, ipse quoque ad instar infelicissimi sui filii iugulum sibi multis ictibus contrucidat, quoad super mensam cernulus corruens portentosi cruoris maculas novi sanguinis fluvio proluit.

These were the prodigious portents that had presaged, these the things that had been announced to the most wretched master. Nor could the old man, hemmed in by so many evils, utter any word, nor even a silent weeping; but, having snatched up the steel with which just now among his fellow-feasters he had divided the cheese and the other parts of the midday meal, he likewise, after the fashion of his most ill-fated son, with many strokes butchered his own throat, until, reeling, collapsing upon the table, he washed out the stains of portentous gore with a stream of new blood.

[39] Ad istum modum puncto brevissimo dilapsae domus fortunam hortulanus ille miseratus suosque casus graviter ingemescens, depensis pro prandio lacrimis vacuasque manus complodens saepicule, protinus inscenso me retro quam veneramus viam capessit. Nec innoxius ei saltem regressus evenit. Nam quidam procerus et, ut indicabat habitus atque habitudo, miles e legione, factus nobis obvius, superbo atque adroganti sermone percontatur, quorsum vacuum duceret asinum?

[39] In this manner, pitying the fortune of the house collapsed in the briefest instant and, heavily groaning over his own misfortunes, having paid tears in place of lunch and frequently clapping his empty hands, he straightway, having mounted me, takes up the road back by which we had come. Nor did even the return prove harmless to him. For a certain tall man, and, as his attire and habit indicated, a soldier from the legion, meeting us, with proud and arrogant speech inquires whither he was leading the empty ass.

At meus, adhuc maerore permixtus et alias Latini sermonis ignarus, tacitus praeteribat. Nec miles ille familiarem cohibere quivit insolentiam, sed indignatus silentio eius ut convicio, viti quam tenebat obtundens eum dorso meo proturbat. Tunc hortulanus subplicue respondit sermonis ignorantia se quid ille disceret scire non posse.

But my man, still commingled with grief and otherwise ignorant of the Latin speech, was passing by in silence. Nor could that soldier restrain his familiar insolence, but, indignant at his silence as if it were an insult, bludgeoning him with the vine-rod which he was holding, he drives him off with my back. Then the gardener replied suppliantly that, because of his ignorance of language, he could not know what that fellow was saying.

Ergo igitur Graece subiciens miles: "Vbi" inquit "ducis asinum istum?".

Therefore then, the soldier, subjoining in Greek: "Where," says he, "are you leading that ass?"

Respondit hortulanus petere se civitatem proximam. "Sed mihi" inquit "opera eius opus est; nam de proximo castello sarcinas praesidis nostri cum ceteris iumentis debet advehere"; et iniecta statim manu loro me, quo ducebar, arreptum incipit trahere. Sed hortulanus prioris plagae vulnere prolapsum capite sanguinem detergens rursus deprecatur civilius atque mansuetius versari commilitonem idque per spes prosperas eius orabat adiurans.

The gardener replied that he was seeking the nearest city. “But,” said he, “I have need of his service; for from the nearest fort he must carry the baggage of our governor along with the other beasts of burden”; and straightway, with his hand laid on, he seizes me by the halter by which I was being led and begins to drag me. But the gardener, wiping from his head the blood that had run down from the wound of the earlier blow, again beseeches that his fellow-soldier conduct himself more civilly and more gently, and he begged this, adjuring him by his prosperous hopes.

"Nam et hic ipse" aiebat "iners asellus et nihilo minus (mordax) morboque detestabili caducus vix etiam paucos holerum maniculos de proximo hortulo solet anhelitu languido fatigatus subvehere, nedum ut rebus amplioribus idoneus videatur gerulus."

"For even this very one," he said, "an inert little ass and nonetheless (mordacious), and subject to the detestable falling-sickness, hardly even is wont to carry up a few little bundles of greens from the nearby garden, wearied by languid panting, much less that he should seem a suitable porter for more ample affairs."

[40] Sed ubi nullis precibus mitigari militem magisque in suam perniciem advertit efferari iamque inversa vite de vastiore nodulo cerebrum suum diffindere, currit ad extrema subsidia simulansque sese ad commovendam miserationem genua evis velle contigere, summissus atque incurvatus, arreptis eius utrisque pedibus sublimem terrae graviter adplodit et statim qua pugnis qua cubitis qua morsibus, etiam de via lapide correpto, totam faciem manusque eius et latera converberat. Nec ille, ut primum humi supinatus est, vel repugnare vel omnino munire se potuit, sed plane identidem comminabatur, si surrexisset, sese concisurum eum machaera sua frustatim. Quo sermone eius commonefactus hortulanus eripit ei spatham eaque longissime abiecta rursum saevioribus eum plagis adgreditur.

[40] But when he saw that the soldier could not be softened by any prayers and was growing more savage to his own ruin—and now, with the vine-stock reversed, from a rather massive knob, was about to split his brain—he runs to last resorts, and, pretending for the sake of stirring pity that he wished to touch his knees, crouching and bent, he seized both his feet and, lifting him up, slammed him heavily to the ground; and at once, with fists, with elbows, with bites, even snatching a stone from the road, he battered his whole face and his hands and sides. Nor, once he was first laid on his back on the ground, could that man either fight back or at all protect himself, but indeed he kept threatening again and again that, if he got up, he would cut him to pieces with his machaera. Reminded by that speech of his, the gardener snatches his spatha from him, and, having flung it very far away, again attacks him with still more savage blows.

Nec ille prostratus et praeventus vulneribus reperire saluti quiens subsidium, quod solum restabat, simulat sese mortuum. Tunc spatham illam secum asportans hortulanus inscenso me concito gradu recta festinat ad civitatem nec hortulum suum saltem curans invisere ad quempiam sibi devertit familiarem. Cunctisque narratis deprecatur, periclitanti sibi ferret auxilium seque cum suo sibi asino tantisper occultaret, quoad celatus spatio bidui triduive capitalem causam evaderet.

Nor could he, prostrate and forestalled by wounds, find any aid for his safety—there remained but one recourse—he pretends himself dead. Then the gardener, carrying off that sword with him and, having mounted me, at a rapid pace hastens straight to the city; and not even caring to visit his little garden, he turns aside to a certain familiar of his. After recounting everything, he beseeches that he would bring help to him in peril and would conceal him for a while together with his own donkey, until, hidden for the space of two or three days, he might evade a capital charge.

Nec oblitus ille veteris amicitiae prompte suscipit, meque per scalas complicitis pedibus in superius cenaculum adtracto hortulanus deorsus in ipsa tabernula derepit in quandam cistulam et supergesto delitiscit orificio.

Not forgetful of the old friendship, he promptly undertakes it, and—with my feet folded together—after hauling me up the stairs into the upper room, the gardener, down below in the very little shop, crawls into a certain small chest and, the orifice set over it, hides himself.

[41] At miles ille, ut postea didici, tandem velut emersus gravi crapula, nutabundus tamen et tot plagarum dolore saucius baculoque se vix sustinens, civitatem adventat confususque de impotentia deque inertia sua quicquam ad quemquam referre popularium, sed tacitus iniuriam devorans quosdam commilitones nanctus is tantum clades enarrat suas. Placuit ut ipse quidem contubernio se tantisper absconderet — nam praeter propriam contumeliam militaris etiam sacramenti genium ob amissam spatham verebatur —, ipsi autem signis enotatis investigationi vindictaeque sedulam darent operam. Nec defuit vicinus perfidus, qui nos ilico occultari nuntiaret.

[41] But that soldier, as I later learned, at last as if surfaced from heavy crapulence, yet staggering and wounded by the pain of so many blows and scarcely supporting himself with a staff, makes for the city; and, confounded at his impotence and inertia, he refrains from reporting anything to any of his fellow townsmen, but, swallowing the injury in silence, having come upon certain comrades-in-arms he recounts only his calamities. It was decided that he himself should meanwhile hide in the contubernium — for, apart from his own contumely, he also feared the genius of the military oath on account of the lost sword —, while they, the marks having been noted, should give diligent effort to investigation and vengeance. Nor was there lacking a perfidious neighbor to announce forthwith that we were hiding there.

Tunc commilitones accersitis magistratibus mentiuntur sese multi pretii vasculum argenteum praesidis in via perdidisse idque hortulanum quendam reperisse nec velle restituere, sed apud familiarem quendam sibi delitescere. Tunc magistratus et damno et praesidis nomine cognito veniunt ad deversori nostri fores claraque voce denuntiant hospiti nostro nos, quos occultaret apud se certo certius, dedere potius quam discrimen proprii subiret capitis. Nec ille tantillum conterritus salutique studens eius, quem in suam receperat fidem, quicquam de nobis fatetur ac diebus plusculis nec vidisse quidem illum hortulanum contendit.

Then the comrades-in-arms, the magistrates having been summoned, lie that they had lost on the road a small silver vessel of great price belonging to the governor, and that a certain gardener had found it and was unwilling to restore it, but was skulking with a certain acquaintance of theirs. Then the magistrates, the loss and the governor’s name having been ascertained, come to the doors of our lodging and with a clear voice denounce to our host that he should rather hand over us, whom he was most certainly hiding with him, than undergo the peril of his own head. But he, not the least terrified and being studious of the safety of him whom he had received into his protection, confesses nothing about us, and for several days maintains that he had not even seen that gardener.

Contra commilitones ibi nec uspiam illum delitescere adiurantes genium principis contendebant. Postremum magistratibus placuit obstinate denegantem scrutinio detegere. Immissis itaque lictoribus ceterisque publicis ministeriis angulatim cuncta sedulo perlustrari iubent, nec quisquam mortalium ac ne ipse quidem asinus intra comparere nuntiatur.

By contrast, the fellow-soldiers there, swearing by the genius of the princeps, maintained that he was not hiding anywhere. At last it pleased the magistrates to detect the one obstinately denying by scrutiny. And so, with the lictors and the other public officials sent in, they order everything to be carefully searched, corner by corner; and it is reported that no mortal, and not even the ass himself, appears within.

[42] Tunc gliscit violentior utrimquesecus contentio, militum pro comperto de nobis adseverantium fidemque Caesaris identidem implorantium, at illius negantis adsidueque deum numen obtestantis. Qua contentione et clamoso strepitu cognito, curiosus alioquin et inquieti procacitate praeditus asinus, dum obliquata cervice per quandam fenestrulam quidquam sibi vellet tumultus ille prospicere gestio, unus e commilitonibus casu fortuito conlimatis oculis ad umbram meam cunctos testatur incoram. Magnus denique continuo clamor exortus est et emensis protinus scalis iniecta manu quidam me velut captivum detrahunt.

[42] Then the contention swells more violent on either side, the soldiers affirming as a thing ascertained about me and again and again imploring the faith of Caesar, but he denying and continually calling the divine numen to witness. When this contention and the clamorous din were noticed, the ass—naturally curious and endowed with the sauciness of the restless—while, with my neck bent sidelong, through a certain little window I was eager to look out to see what that tumult wanted with me, one of the fellow-soldiers, by a fortuitous chance, with his eyes brought into line, points out to all in their presence my shadow. A great clamor straightway arose, and, the stairs quickly traversed, with hands laid on me certain men drag me down as though a captive.

Iamque omni sublata cunctatione scrupulosius contemplantes singula, cista etiam illa revelata, repertum productumque et oblatum magistratibus miserum hortulanum poenas scilicet capite pensurum in publicum deducunt carcerem summoque risu meum prospectum cavillari non desinunt. Vnde etiam de prospectu et umbra asini natum est frequens proverbium.

And now, with all hesitation removed, scrutinizing each item more scrupulously, and that chest too uncovered, they lead to the public prison the wretched gardener—discovered, brought forth, and presented to the magistrates—clearly to pay the penalties with his head; and with the highest laughter they do not cease to cavil at my peering-out. Whence also the frequent proverb was born about the prospect and the shadow of an ass.