He was the
first man who invented a successful nightingale sauce; his bold and
creative genius added much, and would have added more, to THE ART OF
COOKERY--but, alas for the interests of science! he lived in the days
when the Gothic barbarians besieged THE IMPERIAL CITY; famine left him
no matter for gustatory experiment; and pestilence deprived him of cooks
to enlighten! Opposed at all points by the force of adverse
circumstances, finding his life of no further use to the culinary
interests of Rome, he called his chosen friends together to assist him,
conscientiously drank up every drop of wine remaining in his cellars,
lit the funeral pile of himself and his guests, in the banqueting-hall
of his own palace, and died, as he had lived, the patriotic CATO of his
country's gastronomy!
'Behold!' cried Vetranio, pointing triumphantly to the epitaph--'behold
in every line of those eloquent letters at once the seal of my resolute
adherence to the engagement that unites us here, and the foundation of
my just claim to the reverence of posterity on the most useful of the
arts which I exercised for the benefit of my species! Read, friends,
brethren, fellow-martyrs of glory, and, as you read, rejoice with me
over the hour of our departure from the desecrated arena, no longer
worthy the celebration of the Games of Life! Yet, ere the feast
proceeds, hear me while I speak--I make my last oration as the arbiter
of our funeral sports, as the host of the Banquet of Famine!
'Who would sink ignobly beneath the slow superiority of starvation, or
perish under the quickly glancing steel of the barbarian conqueror's
sword, when such a death as ours is offered to the choice?--when wine
flows bright, to drown sensation in oblivion, and a palace and its
treasures furnish alike the scene of the revel and the radiant funeral
pile? The mighty philosophers of India--the inspired Gymnosophists--
died as we shall die! Calanus before Alexander, Zamarus in the presence
of Augustus, lit the fires that consumed them! Let us follow their
glorious example! No worms will prey upon our bodies, no hired mourners
will howl discordant at our funerals! Purified in the radiance of
primeval fire, we shall vanish triumphant from enemies and friends--a
marvel to the earth, a vision of glory to the gods themselves!
'Is it a day more or a day less of life that is now of importance to us?
No; it is only towards the easiest and the noblest death that our
aspirations can turn! Among our number there is now not one whom the
care of existence can further occupy!
'Here, at my right hand, reclines my estimable comrade of a thousand
former feasts, Furius Balburius Placidus, who, when we sailed on the
Lucrine Lake, was wont to complain of intolerable hardship if a fly
settled on the gilded folds of his umbrella; who languished for a land
of Cimmerian darkness if a sunbeam penetrated the silken awnings of his
garden-terrace; and who now wrangles for a mouthful of horseflesh with
the meanest of his slaves, and would exchange the richest of his country
villas for a basket of dirty bread! O Furius Balburius Placidus, of
what further use is life to thee?
'There, at my left, I discern the changed though still expressive
countenance of the resolute Thascius, he who chastised a slave with a
hundred lashes if his warm water was not brought immediately at his
command; he whose serene contempt for every member of the human species
by himself once ranked him among the greatest of human philosophers;
even he now wanders through his palace unserved, and fawns upon the
plebeian who will sell him a measure of wretched bran! Oh, admired
friend, oh, rightly reasoning Thascius, say, is there anything in Rome
which should delay thee on thy journey to the Elysian Fields?
'Farther onward at the table, drinking largely while I speak, I behold,
O Marcus Moecius Moemmius, thy once plump and jovial form!--thou, in
former days accustomed to rejoice in the length of thy name, because it
enabled thy friends to drink the more in drinking a cup to each letter
of it, tell me what banqueting-hall is now open to thee but this?--and
thus desolate in the city of thy social triumphs, what should disincline
thee to make of our festal solemnity thy last revel on earth?
'Thou, too, facetious hunchback, prince of parasites, unscrupulous
Reburrus, where, but at this banquet of famine, will thy buffoonery now
procure for thee a draught of reviving wine? Thy masters have abandoned
thee to thy native dunghill! No more shalt thou wheedle for them when
they borrow, or bully for them when they pay! No more charges of
poisoning or magic shalt thou forge to imprison their troublesome
creditors! Oh, officious sycophant, thy occupations are no more! Drink
while thou canst, and then resign thy carcass to congenial mire!
'And you, my five remaining friends, whom--little desirous of further
delay--I will collectively address, think on the days when the suspicion
of an infectious malady in any one of your companions was sufficient to
separate you from the dearest of them; when the slaves who came to you
from their palaces underwent long ceremonies of ablution before they
approached your presence; and remembering this, reflect that most,
perhaps all of us, now meet here plague-tainted already; and then say,
of what advantage is it to languish for a life which is yours no longer?
'No, my friends, my brethren of the banquet; feeling that when life is
worthless it is folly to live, you cannot shrink from the lofty
resolution by which we are bound, you cannot pause on our joyful journey
of departure from the scenes of earth--I wrong you even by a doubt! Let
me now, rather, ask your attention for a worthier subject--the
enumeration of the festal ceremonies by which the progress of the
banquet will be marked.
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