THE PERGAMENE BOY BY PETRONIUS
NEW translation with the additions of more footnotes and the Latin text.
The Pergamene Boy is the name given on this website for ease of reference to the unnamed chapters 85 to 87 of the Satyricon by the Roman writer Petronius. It is the fourth of the seven parts into which the Satyricon is divided here.
The Pergamene Boy is fully able to stand as a story on its own, but the context in which it was ecounted is as follows. Encolpius, the narrator of the whole Satyricon, deeply wounded at being abandoned by Giton, the boy he loves, has wandered into a picture gallery, where Eumolpus, a shabbily-dressed “white-headed old man” holding “promise of some greatness” introduces himself as a poet, explains his poverty and proceeds to tell Encolpius about his past.
As Eumoplus is telling a story from his youth, we are probably supposed to imagine it as set a generation earlier than the AD 65 in which the Satyricon was probably written. However, there is a school of modern thought supposing that the story is an adaptation of a much earlier lost Greek story written towards the end of the 2nd century BC. by Aristeides of Miletos, who is known to have wriiten salacious and amusing stories with unexpected twists in their plots.
A line of five ***** represents a gap of any length in the surviving text, which has survived only in fragments, and what is likely to have been recounted in it must be deduced or guessed. The translation is by Paul Dinnage for The Satyricon of Petronius published by Spearman & Calder of London in 1953, with one amended phrase explained in a footnote.
| “When I went to Asia in the suite of a Treasury official, I stayed in Pergamum.[1] I was glad to live there, not only for the stylish quarters, but also because my host had a very handsome son. I thought out a scheme for becoming his lover without being suspected by his father. As often as mention was made at table of the abuse of such attractive boys, I got so violently heated, so extremely chagrined at having my ears assailed by such obscene talk, that his mother, more than anyone, took me to be one of the moral philosophers. I now escorted the boy to his lecture-rooms, I arranged his studies, I taught and tutored, I took care to see that no one who might seduce him set foot in the house. | [85 i] “in Asiam cum a quaestore essem stipendio eductus, hospitium Pergami accepi. ubi cum libenter habitarem non solum propter cultum aedicularum, sed etiam propter hospitis formosissimum filium, excogitavi rationem, qua non essem patri familiae suspectus amator. [ii] quotiescumque enim in convivio de usu formosorum mentio facta est, tam vehementer excandui, tam severa tristitia violari aures meas obsceno sermone nolui, ut me mater praecipue tamquam unum ex philosophis intueretur. [iii] iam ego coeperam ephebum in gymnasium deducere, ego studia eius ordinare, ego docere ac praecipere, ne quis praedator corporis admitteretur in domum. |
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One holiday, when lessons were curtailed, we were lazing on a couch, too indolent to retire to our room after a long day’s enjoyment. About midnight I realised that my boy was wide awake. I whispered a fearful prayer. ‘Dear Venus,’ I said, ‘if I may kiss this boy without his noticing, tomorrow I will give him a pair of turtle-doves.’ [2] As soon as he heard the price of my desires he began to snore. Getting close I was able to steal a few kisses. Satisfied with this beginning, I was up early in the morning to bring the pair of doves he awaited. So I discharged my vow. The following night the same thing was allowed, and I raised my stake. ‘If,’ I said, ‘I may caress him sensuously without his feeling it, I will award him two cocks, the most gallant of the yard, for obliging me.’ At this promise the boy moved up of his own accord, and I think he was afraid I might fall asleep. I soon calmed his anxiety, and indulged in his body, saving the supreme pleasure. When day came I made the boy happy with what I had promised him.[3] |
[85 iv] forte cum in triclinio iaceremus, quia dies sollemnis ludum adiuverat pigritiamque recedendi imposuerat hilaritas longior, fere circa mediam noctem intellexi puerum vigilare. [v] itaque timidissimo murmure votum feci et ‘domina’ inquam ‘Venus, si ego hunc puerum basiavero ita ut ille non sentiat, cras illi par columbarum donabo.’ [vi] audito voluptatis pretio coepit puer stertere. itaque aggressus dissimulantem aliquot basiolis invasi. contentus hoc principo bene mane surrexi electumque par columbarum attuli expectanti ac me voto exsolvi. [86 i] proxima nocte cum idem liceret, mutavi opinionem et ‘si hunc’ inquam ‘tractavero improba manu et ille non senserit, gallos gallinaceos pugnacissimos duos donabo patienti.’ [ii] ad hoc votum ephebus ultro se admovit et, puto, vereri coepit ne ego obdormissem. [iii] indulsi ergo sollicito, totoque corpore citra summam voluptatem me ingurgitavi. deinde ut dies venit, attuli gaudenti quicquid promiseram. |
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The third night I again had as much liberty, and I gained the sham sleeper’s ear. ‘Immortal gods,’ I said, ‘if I may take the full pleasure I desire from this sleeping child, for that I will give him tomorrow a Macedonian racehorse, one of the best, on condition that he feels nothing.’[4] The boy never fell into a deeper sleep than now. First I touched his milk-white breast, then my lips closed on his and I crowned all my desires in one. The next morning he sat in his bedroom, expecting the usual thing to happen. But you know how much easier it is to buy doves and cocks than a horse, and anyway I was afraid so sizeable a gift might make my generosity suspect. I strode around for some hours, returned to my lodgings, and did no more than kiss the boy. He looked about, and throwing his arms round my neck, “Sir,” he said, “where is my horse?” * * * * * Although the offence excluded me from the entrée I had gained, I was to win my privilege once more. A few days went by, and a similar chance threw us into the same good fortune. As soon as I heard his father snore, I started asking the boy to make his peace with me, that is to say, to suffer my pleasure. I used all the arguments that lust dictates. Utterly enraged, his only reply was, “Go to sleep, or I’ll call my father.” Nothing is so difficult that lust cannot extort it. While he repeated, “I’ll wake my father,” I insinuated myself and took my pleasure, in spite of poorly-disguised resistance. But my attack did not seem to displease him, and after a lengthy complaint that my deception had earned him the ridicule of his school-fellows, to whom he had boasted of my largesse, he said, ‘You will see I am not like you. Start again, if you want to.’ |
[86 iv] ut tertia nox eandem licentiam dedit, consurrexi et ad aurem male dormientis ‘dii’ inquam ‘immortales, si ego huic dormienti abstulero coitum plenum et optabilem, pro hac felicitate cras puero asturconem Macedonicum optimum donabo, cum hac tamen exceptione, si ille non senserit.’ [v] numquam altiore somno ephebus obdormivit. itaque primum implevi lactentibus papillis manus, mox basio inhaesi, deinde in unum omnia vota coniunxi. [vi] mane puer sedere in cubiculo coepit atque expectare consuetudinem meam. scis quanto facilius sit columbas gallosque gallinaceos emere quam asturconem, et praeter hoc etiam timebam ne tam grande munus suspectam faceret humanitatem meam. [vii] ergo aliquot horis spatiatus in hospitium reverti nihilque aliud quam puerum basiavi. at ille circumspiciens ut cervicem meam iunxit amplexu, ‘rogo’ inquit ‘domine, ubi est asturco?’ * * * * * [87 i] cum ob hanc offensam praeclusissem mihi aditum quem feceram, iterum ad licentiam redii. interpositis enim paucis diebus cum similis nos casus in eandem fortunam rettulisset, ut intellexit stertere patrem, rogare coepi ephebum ut reverteretur in gratiam mecum, id est ut pateretur satis fieri sibi, et cetera quae libido distenta dictat. [ii] at ille plane iratus nihil aliud dicebat nisi hoc: [iii] ‘aut dormi, aut ego iam dicam patri.’ nihil est tam arduum quod non improbitas extorqueat. dum dicit: ‘patrem excitabo,’ irrepsi tamen et male repugnanti gaudium extorsi. [iv] at ille non indelectatus nequitia mea, postquam diu questus est deceptum se et derisum traductumque inter condiscipulos, quibus iactasset censum meum, [v] ‘videris tamen’ inquit ‘non ero tui similis. [vi] si quid vis, fac iterum.’ |
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So we forgot our differences, I obtained my pardon, and fell asleep after profiting by his good humour. But this second caress was not enough for a youth in the full flower of an age that is eager for submission.[5] He woke me from my sleep with the words, ‘What, no more?’ It had not yet actually become tiresome, so breathing heavily and sweating, I did my best to please him, and dropped back to sleep with fatigue. Less than an hour later, he was pinching me: ‘Why aren’t we at it?’ Then I, after being woken up so often, got into a thoroughly bad temper, and to turn the tables on him said, ‘Go to sleep, or I’ll call your father.’ ” |
[87 vi] ego vero deposita omni offensa cum puero in gratiam redii ususque beneficio eius in somnum delapsus sum. [vii] sed non fuit contentus iteratione ephebus plenae maturitatis et annis ad patiendum gestientibus. itaque excitavit me sopitum et ‘numquid vis?’ inquit. [viii] et non paene iam molestum erat munus. utcumque igitur inter anhelitus sudoresque tritus, quod voluerat accepit, rursusque in somnum decidi gaudio lassus. [ix]interposita minus hora pungere me manu coepit et dicere: ‘quare non facimus?’ [x] tum ego totiens excitatus plane vehementer excandui et reddidi illi voces suas: ‘aut dormi, aut ego iam patri dicam.’” |
[1] Pergamon was the capital of the Roman province of Asia on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Turkey. It was Greek, which may have helped foster a more favourable ambience for pederastic seduction, especially if the Pergamene Boy is really a Roman adaptation of an earlier Greek story.
Poets often accompanied Roman provincial governors, generals etc. to their new posts, for example, Tibullus, Catullus and Ennius did so.
[2] Eumolpus is invoking the help of Venus as the deity sympathetic to all lovers. Doves were sacred to her (as see, for exaple, in Ovid, Metamorphoses XV 386).
[3] Eumolpus was surely taking a risk here of arousing the parents’ suspicions that he had taken such trouble to allay,, as they, living in Pergamon, might well be aware that figting-cocks were one of the most typical gifts from a Greek man to a boy he was wooing. See the article On the Role of the Fighting Cock in Greek Pederasty.
[4] A racehorse would be a very expensive gift, but not absurdly so. In Achilles Tatius’s novel Leukippe and Kleitophon (I 7 i), Kleinias gives one to his eromenos Charikles, who is killed riding it.
[5] For more precise understanding of a phrase important for its insight, the translator’s “welcomed these delights” has been replaced by “eager to be submissive” for ad patiendum gestientibus. Patiendum, also used for females on heat, implies the boy was eager for Eumolpus to pedicate him. It is one of many Roman texts which decorously acknowledged that adolescent boys enjoyed being penetrated and that this was understandable, neither being true for men unless they were cinaedi (pathics). Caelius Aurelianus noted that “many people think boys are afflicted with this passion,” and explained their pleasure as being because the “masculine function” had not yet taken over their bodies (De morbis chronicis IV 9 cxxxvii).
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