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
sufficie