Books: Gutter Odyssey

THE SATYRICON OF PETRONIUS (218 pp.) —Translafed by William Arrowsmith—University of Michigan ($3.95).

The study of Latin offers two great rewards among others: in the first year the student learns to decipher dates on cornerstones, and in the seventh or eighth, if he is clever, he is able to read the Satyricon. The randy classic, which deals with a kind of conjugation untouched by grammars, has been nibbled at on the sly by headmasters and bishops; one old Etonian boasted that he had four editions and thought it “rather a gesture” to keep his best one, bound in clerical black, on his pew at chapel.

Classicists have violated the customary translators’ code of leaving juicy passages corseted in the original Latin. This version, by a translator who understands the high art of low humor, is conspicuously uncorseted and, what is more unusual, funny.

Refined Voluptuary. The Satyricon—whose title may refer both to satire and to the customary activity of satyrs—is probably the work of Gaius Petronius. Nero’s “arbiter of elegance.” of whom Tacitus wrote: “He spent his days in sleeping, his nights in the enjoyment of life. That success which most men achieve by dint of hard work, he won by laziness. Yet unlike those prodigals who waste themselves and their substance alike, he was not regarded as either a spendthrift or a debauchee, but rather as a refined voluptuary.”

Petronius’ story follows the happenstance progress of three impure pilgrims: the freeloader Encolpius (whose name means, roughly, “the crotch”); the effeminate boy Giton. who is Encolpius’ “brother” (“frater” to Romans had a double meaning of homosexuality); and Ascyltus. who lusts after Giton. With a straight face. Petronius defended the propriety of his romance:

Then why in heaven’s name must every nagging prude of Cato’s ilk cry shame, denounce my work as lewd, damning with a look my guileless, simple art, this simple, modern book?

The verse—its deft rendering into English is typical of Latinist Arrowsmith’s translation—is. of course, sheer nonsense. The Satyricon is as impure and guileful as anything in literature, and Petronius was mocking Roman bluenoses when he pretended to deny it. But the great gaiety of the work, and the sharpness with which Petronius satirizes esthetes, pedants, bad poets, the nouveau riche and the rapacious poor, lift this gutter odyssey well above the merely pornographic. The fragment that remains of the original huge manuscript is a mixture of prose, poetry and puns, fustian rhetoric and sweaty argot.

Wilted Poppies. Encolpius opens the book with a scabrous philippic against “modern” education, sounding a little like Bernard Shaw denouncing formal schooling. But Encolpius tires of this theme and soon becomes involved with his two comrades-in-arms in a sale of stolen goods. Later, the two older men quarrel, and Encolpius suggests they divide their belongings and separate. Ascyltus agrees—and draws his sword, threatening to divide the boy Giton. The most sustained satire of the volume describes a lavish dinner at the mansion of Trimalchio, wealthy and flatulent onetime slave. He presents each outrageous new dish—a roast sow. for instance, with a bellyful of live thrushes—displaying all the joy of a labor racketeer showing off the power ashtrays on his Cadillac. The guests snicker at Trimalchio’s ostentation—but their faces are smeared from the food they have choked down.

Encolpius offends Priapus. god of fertility and lust, and Priapus retaliates by making the buffoon impotent. The anguished lover delivers a severe lecture to his disabled member, but to no effect. Petronius borrows some lines from Vergil to describe the disaster:

He turned his head away and gazed upon

the ground, unstirred, unmoved, as on a windless

day of summer heat, the languid willow

leaves lie still, and wilted poppies on their slender

stems hang down.

Although the Satyricon’s authorship has been disputed. Translator Arrowsmith feels that Petronius lived in a style entirely consonant with the wild life of the book. Even Petronius’ death was artfully arranged. When palace intrigue involved him in a treason charge, he opened his veins, chatted airily with his friends, recited some light poetry; then, placing a manicured thumb to an elegant nose, he wrote out a definitive list of Nero’s bed partners and sent it off to the emperor before he lay back to die.