V Sleeping Draught
Nep. What! do you never have a sleeping draught after supper?
Piso. Pretty often.
Nep. What do you have, I beg? for that is most delightful.
Piso. We prepare a banquet such as that of Syrus mentioned by Terence, or of one of the lordly people mentioned by Athenaeus or of the like, of which the record has been handed down in history. Do you think us swine or men? What stomach would preserve its soundness of health if after four meals it were to add a drinking-bout? Observe you are in a school, not in an eating-house. For they say there is nothing more ruinous to health than to drink immediately before going to bed.
Nep. May I be allowed to be present at meal-time?
Piso. Certainly. Only I must first beg permission from the teacher, who will, I am sure, give it without difficulty, as is usual with him.
To take you to the banquet, without the master’s permission, would be ill breeding; and he who should so bring you would draw on himself from his fellow-disciples nothing less than reproach and shame. Stop a minute. Will you, sir, permit with your good favour, that a certain boy known to me should be present at our meal?
Praec. Certainly. There will be no harm in it.
Piso. Thank you. He whom thou seest there, who has a napkin in place of a neck-cloth is the feast-master of the dining-room (architriclinus) this week—for here we have weekly feast-masters, like kings.
Feast-Master. Lamia, what time is it?
Lamia. I have not heard the hours since the third, being intent on the composition of a letter. Florus will know this better than I, for he has not seen book or paper the whole of the afternoon.
Florus. This is friendly testimony, and if the teacher were angry, it would have great weight. But how couldst thou observe me, being immersed, as thou sayest, in the composition of a letter? Clearly ill-will has driven thee to telling a lie. I rejoice, indeed, that my enemy is held to be a liar. If after this he shall wish to say evil of me, such statements will not be believed.
Feast-Master. Can I not then, elsewhere, get to know as to the time? Anthrax, run across to St. Peter’s and look at the time.
Anthrax. The pointer shows that it is now six o’clock.