PETRONIUS ARBITER
When good luck beckons, then your friend his gleeful service gives
But basely flies when ruin o’er you towers.
The strollers act their farces upon the stage, each one his part,
The father, son, the rich man, all are here,
But soon the page is turned upon the comic actor’s art,
The masque is dropped, the make-ups disappear!
But basely flies when ruin o’er you towers.
The strollers act their farces upon the stage, each one his part,
The father, son, the rich man, all are here,
But soon the page is turned upon the comic actor’s art,
The masque is dropped, the make-ups disappear!
CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-FIRST. Nevertheless, I did not indulge myself very long in tears, being afraid that Menelaus, the tutor, might drop in upon me all alone in the lodging-house, and catch me in the midst of my troubles, so I collected my baggage and, with a heavy heart, sneaked off to an obscure quarter near the seashore. There, I kept to my room for three days. My mind was continually haunted by my loneliness and desertion, and I beat my breast, already sore from blows. “Why could not the earth have opened and swallowed me,” I wailed aloud, between the many deep-drawn groans, “or the sea, which rages even against the guiltless? Did I flee
179
