Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 1.djvu/109

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PETRONIUS ARBITER
 

her sides shook. Finally not even Giton himself could resist a smile, especially when the little girl caught him around the neck and showered innumerable kisses upon him, and he not at all averse to it.


CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST. We would have cried aloud in our misery but there was no one to give us any help, and whenever I attempted to shout, “Help! all honest citizens,” Psyche would prick my cheeks with her hairpin, and the little girl would intimidate Ascyltos with a brush dipped in satyrion. Then a catamite appeared, clad in a myrtle-colored frieze robe, and girded round with a belt. One minute he nearly gored us to death with his writhing buttocks, and the next, he befouled us so with his stinking kisses that Quartilla, with her robe tucked high, held up her whalebone wand and ordered him to give the unhappy wretches quarter. Both of us then took a most solemn oath that so dread a secret should perish with

51