III Second Course
Scop. Take away those things; change the round and square plates, and lay the second table (dessert). For no one is anywhere further stretching forth his hand to the dishes.
Crit. I have eaten so heartily from the beginning that I have quite lost all further appetite.
Dem. I also have no more appetite, but I was led on by the desire of the fruit dishes here, and so have eaten to satiety.
Pol. I have eaten I don’t know how much fish. This has repulsed all my appetite.
Sim. And is there so much of splendid dainties and delicacies before us when there is no longer the desire of eating? Pears, apples, and cheese of many kinds! The most attractive to my palate is the horse-cheese.
Crit. I believe that it is not horse-cheese at all, but Phrygian cheese from asses’ milk, such as is brought from Sicily in the form of columns and squares. When one is broken, it cleaves into layers or, as it were, sheets (of paper).
Dem. This cheese is porous as if it were from England, and will not in my opinion be pleasing to you.
Crit. Nor will this spongy Dutch cheese. This from Parma is thicker and, as it seems, fairly fresh, and that Penasellian (Spanish) will easily vie with it.
Dem. This cheese is not from Parma but Placentia.
Crit. It also is pleasant. Commonly the cheese dearest to the Germans is old cheese, putrid, fried up and wormy.
Sim. He who eats such cheese is hunting for thirst and he eats in order to drink.
Scop. The pastry-cook delays too long with his sweets. Why does he not bring his tarts, his wine-cakes and cup-cakes and the fried cakes made of a concoction thrown into a vessel of boiling oil with honey poured over it?
Crit. Give me a few dates, both some to eat and some to keep by me. Perhaps I shall to-night eat nothing else.
Scop. Then take the whole of this branch of them. Will you have some pomegranates?
Pol. Here, boy, relieve me of these wild dates and give me something eatable.
Scop. I advise you to drink. Don’t you know that it was the opinion of Aristotle that the dessert was introduced into meals to invite us to drinking lest the food should be digested dry?
Crit. The discoverer must have been either a sailor or fish to be so much afraid of dryness.
Scop. Take away those things which are ordinarily called the seal of the stomach, because after them nothing more is to be eaten or drunk, biscuits, quince-cakes, coriander covered with sugar. But such food must be chewed, not eaten. What remains from the portion chewed must be spit out, for it is uneatable. Collect the bits and what remains over in baskets; bring scented waters, of rose, of the flowers of the healing apple (citron), and of musk-melon.