d
poured wine upon our hands, for no one offered us water. When
complimented upon these elegant extras, the host cried out, "Mars loves
a fair fight: and so I ordered each one a separate table: that way these
stinking slaves won't make us so hot with their crowding." Some glass
bottles carefully sealed with gypsum were brought in at that instant; a
label bearing this inscription was fastened to the neck of each one:

OPIMIAN FALERNIAN
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

While we were studying the labels, Trimalchio clapped his hands and
cried, "Ah me! To think that wine lives longer than poor little man.
Let's fill 'em up! There's life in wine and this is the real Opimian,
you can take my word for that. I offered no such vintage yesterday,
though my guests were far more respectable." We were tippling away and
extolling all these elegant devices, when a slave brought in a silver
skeleton, so contrived that the joints and movable vertebra could be
turned in any direction. He threw it down upon the table a time or two,
and its mobile articulation caused it to assume grotesque attitudes,
whereupon Trimalchio chimed in:

"Poor man is nothing in the scheme of things
And Orcus grips us and to Hades flings
Our bones! This skeleton before us here
Is as important as we ever were!
Let's live then while we may and life is dear."

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH.

The applause was followed by a course which, by its oddity, drew every
eye, but it did not come up to our expectations. There was a circular
tray around which were displayed the signs of the zodiac, and upon each
sign the caterer had placed the food best in keeping with it. Ram's
vetches on Aries, a piece of beef on Taurus, kidneys and lamb's fry on
Gemini, a crown on Cancer, the womb of an unfarrowed sow on Virgo, an
African fig on Leo, on Libra a balance, one pan of which held a tart and
the other a cake, a small seafish on Scorpio, a bull's eye on
Sagittarius, a sea lobster on Capricornus, a goose on Aquarius and two
mullets on Pisces. In the middle lay a piece of cut sod upon which
rested a honeycomb with the grass arranged around it. An Egyptian slave
passed bread around from a silver oven and in a most discordant voice
twisted out a song in the manner of the mime in the musical farce called
Laserpitium. Seeing that we were rather depress