Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/9

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VOLUME TWO


CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH. “But to make a long story short, you know the temptations that beset a full stomach: the soldier laid siege to her virtue with the selfsame blandishments by which he had persuaded her that she ought to live. Nor, to her modest eye, did the young man seem uncouth or wanting in address. The maid pled in his behalf and kept repeating:


Why will you fight with a passion that to you is pleasure,
Remembering not in whose lands you are taking your leisure?


But why should I keep you longer in suspense? The lady observed the same abstinence when it came to this part of her body, and the victorious soldier won both of his objectives; so they lay together, not only

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