Satyricon Page #5

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Go! Comfort your Ariadne.

She already submits to you.

Go, Encolpio. Make her happy.

(chanting)

Mangy f***er. Soft as a maggot.

No, wait. l'll manage in a minute.

lt'll be all right.

Screw yourself, shithouse.

Stew in your own filth!

Bad luck to us all, you are.

Let me try again, please!

Leave me alone. Get off!

(women chant)

(speaks Vulgar Latin)

You filth!

Wait! lt was the sun! Treacherous sun!

Eugh!

Ascilto. l've lost my sword.

Look, Encolpio. Here's a friend of yours.

Wallowing lust up my nose.

Limbs of beautiful women drown me.

All night, succulent and prolonged.

Finish at canter or gallop.

A melody hot innovates,

dulls the course of the mind.

Sodden in riches, you see, boy.

Vices grip me.

This tutti-frutti felicity. lt has blasted me.

Lo and behold, the disgusting result.

Too much. And even you

are down to your last penny.

You're pretty paralysed.

l saw you. You looked like

a soaked mouse stranded on a cow.

Ridiculous! A mouse on a cow!

No more drinking now.

What was it occurred?

Priapus has failed you, it's very clear.

He's often like that.

Today it's a log. Tomorrow it's pasta.

But you shall be cured.

Your own Eumolpo will do it.

l'm a man of power now, you see.

Eros looks after me.

By force of intrigue and traffic,

l have become master of the city.

What do you want, boy? Fornication?

Can't manage it, can you?

Still, you must sample

the garden of delights.

Rotten! Quite delicious.

What positions are on today?

They ought to invent some more.

More permutation and combination.

Credit me with having proved them all,

and such quality and such dimension.

See, put on record all the love l've done.

Never grasped you, for example.

Can you remember all those

you've tongued and loved?

Never remember all the kissing, see?

Stay!

A friend of mine here, arrested erection.

Got a set which won't function.

Gone crooked like a curled finger.

Once his pride, too.

(chants)

You go to sleep, now. Yes, that's better.

Why dream the other night?

No good for you.

Promise you'll go to sleep?

(women chant)

Here, darling. Climb on this. Encolpio,

you couldn't come round a corner.

Try me!

l want to be cured, l want to get well!

Wish. Come in.

(sobs)

(woman speaks)

Encolpio. l'll wait for you.

Wait for me? Where?

Tomorrow, midnight,

l have a ship sails for Africa,

with treasure beyond all dream.

You need... you need magic.

- Magic. Enotea.

- Enotea?

She is powerful good witch.

A sorceress can suck up winds.

Spew water from out rocks.

Stub out the stars.

ls old story, years since.

How, when she was beautiful

as day's beginning,

there was a wizard of terrible power,

who was cast into love for her.

Enotea,

l cannot live without your beauty.

Old and ugly.

Enotea found him old and ugly.

She smiled and said he was

to come to her at night.

"Come up a rope to bliss. "

But when the old magician

was halfway to bliss,

he was left a-dangle.

Revenge.

The magician took his revenge

just such a way.

Doused out the fires in the village.

Everyone cold.

"You give back fire, " they said.

"Cold, dark, meat raw, " they said.

"Fires out, " they said.

And he said.:

But fire indeed there is.

Search in the skirts of Enotea,

under her garments you will find it.

There it forks and flickers.

(women sing)

(screams)

Where is she?

(laughs)

Nobody say where is Enotea.

You must seek, but they say

that beyond the great swamp...

Ascilto, are you frightened?

Me? What should l be frightened of?

Enotea.

Will we find her? Will she come?

She'll come. Sure she will.

Certain to come for this.

(woman chants)

(laughter)

Encolpio.

Encolpio!

Oh, mammina, can you see my disgrace?

l am culpable. l disgrace all.

l confess to treachery, to killing a man,

profaning a temple.

And now l am without fire in my loins.

Who has done this thing?

l cannot understand how this can be.

Give me my life again.

(sobs)

l do feel. l do feel. l feel it! l feel it!

l want it! l want it!

Encolpio, come on!

Ascilto, the gods have restored my health.

Mercury slid potent metal into my bones.

Farewell, Enotea, generous mother.

Best foot forward now.

March out and make up for time lost.

Youth withers so fast!

Run, Ascilto! Run!

Like outlaws,

we must flee the new Caesar.

Too hot the ground under our feet.

We embark with Eumolpo

to sail the length of the sea

to where the earth has edge, brother.

Ascilto!

(echoing) Ascilto!

Ascilto.

(echoes)

Ascilto!

(echoes)

Ascilto.

(sobs)

Your arrogance, your wild glory

is gone like the shadow of a cloud.

Fishes will have you,

beasts rend parts of you.

You who a moment since

walked strut so brave.

Dreams, dreams, dreams

for man who is mortal.

You great gods,

how far he lies from your heaven.

The ship will not sail to Africa

with its cargo of slaves.

Eumolpo is dead.

He left a strange will, gentlemen.

Listen to it.

''To all gentlemen

expecting legacies in my testament...''

''All slaves are freed.''

''You may take possession of what l've left

you if cut me up into morsel-size pieces,

and eat me in full view of all.''

''My friends, stain not

your hands or your knives,

but devour my dead flesh with the same

gusto as you sent my soul to hell.''

lt's impossible. lt's a joke.

Why do you say that?

Certain races consider it normal

for the defunct to disappear

into the mouths of the family.

ln fact, it is considered

bad form to die when ill

because it ruins the taste of the flesh.

The mere refusal of my stomach

doesn't much worry me

supposing that,

in exchange for an hour of nausea,

l'm promised money and good fat things.

(laughter)

lt has happened before.

The Saguntines, invested by Hannibal,

munched into human flesh

without an inheritance to salt it.

The city of Numazia

was invested by Scipio.

On capture, mothers were found

holding their half-eaten children.

Happens all the time.

l shall not be odd man out.

- Will you go with us?

- Yes.

Come on.

The wind is favourable.

Look, the clouds are breaking.

(Encolpio) We sailed away

that same night on scud of wave.

Left Eumolpo behind.

l was part of the crew.

Our anchor stone clattered

on harbour beds of unknown ports.

For the first time,

such names as Kelicia, Rectis...

And on an island spread

with sweet-scent grass,

a young Greek told me that in years...

ENHOH:

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