A Conversation with Cronus (22-24)

Tell them, moreover, to invite the poor to dinner, taking in four or five at a time, not as they do nowadays though, but in a more democratic fashion, all having an equal share, not one man stuffing himself with dainties with the servant standing waiting for him to eat himself to exhaustion, then when this servant comes to us he passes on while we are still getting ready to put out our hand, only letting us glimpse the platter or the remnants of the cake. And tell him not to give a whole half of the pig when it’s brought in, and

If you correct and adjust this, Cronus, you will have made living really living and your festival a real festival. If not, let them have their festival, and we shall sit on our haunches praying that when they have come from the bath the boy will turn up the wine-jar and break it over them, that the cook will burn the soup and in a fit of absent-mindedness put the fish in the pudding, and that the dog will rush in and eat up all the sausage, while the scullions are busy with the other preparations, and half the cake as well; that while the pork and the venison and the sucking-pigs are being cooked they may do what Homer says Helius’s cattle did [*] —or rather not only just crawl, but jump up and rush to the mountain, spits and all; and that their plump birds, although already plucked and prepared for serving, should take wing and go off likewise, so that they may not enjoy them by themselves.

This in particular will cause them trouble: we shall pray for their gold to be dug up from its hiding-places by ants like those of India and carried off by night to the public treasury; and that their clothing through neglect of those in charge should be riddled like a sieve by those fine creatures the mice, to be just like a tunny net; and that their pretty, long-haired pages whom they call Hyacinth or Achilles or Narcissus, just as they are handing them the cup should go bald and have their hair fall out and sprout a pointed beard, like the wedge-shaped beards in the comedy, and have the part around their temples become very hairy and exceedingly prickly, and the area between them smooth and bare. All this and more we shall pray for if they will not give up their excessive selfishness and keep their wealth for everybody’s good and give us a moderate share.