The Last Days of Pompeii Part 41

The chair of Ione was next to the couch of Glaucus. The seats were veneered with tortoisesh.e.l.l, and covered with quilts stuffed with feathers, and ornamented with costly embroideries. The modern ornaments of epergne or plateau were supplied by images of the G.o.ds, wrought in bronze, ivory, and silver. The sacred salt-cellar and the familiar Lares were not forgotten. Over the table and the seats a rich canopy was suspended from the ceiling. At each corner of the table were lofty candelabra--for though it was early noon, the room was darkened--while from tripods, placed in different parts of the room, distilled the odor of myrrh and frankincense; and upon the abacus, or sideboard, large vases and various ornaments of silver were ranged, much with the same ostentation (but with more than the same taste) that we find displayed at a modern feast.

The custom of grace was invariably supplied by that of libations to the G.o.ds; and Vesta, as queen of the household G.o.ds, usually received first that graceful homage.

This ceremony being performed, the slaves showered flowers upon the couches and the floor, and crowned each guest with rosy garlands, intricately woven with ribands, tied by the rind of the linden-tree, and each intermingled with the ivy and the amethyst--supposed preventives against the effect of wine; the wreaths of the women only were exempted from these leaves, for it was not the fas.h.i.+on for them to drink wine in public. It was then that the president Diomed thought it advisable to inst.i.tute a basileus, or director of the feast--an important office, sometimes chosen by lot; sometimes, as now, by the master of the entertainment.

Diomed was not a little puzzled as to his election. The invalid senator was too grave and too infirm for the proper fulfilment of his duty; the aedile Pansa was adequate enough to the task: but then, to choose the next in official rank to the senator, was an affront to the senator himself. While deliberating between the merits of the others, he caught the mirthful glance of Sall.u.s.t, and, by a sudden inspiration, named the jovial epicure to the rank of director, or arbiter bibendi.

Sall.u.s.t received the appointment with becoming humility.

'I shall be a merciful king,' said he, 'to those who drink deep; to a recusant, Minos himself shall be less inexorable. Beware!'

The slaves handed round basins of perfumed water, by which lavation the feast commenced: and now the table groaned under the initiatory course.

The conversation, at first desultory and scattered, allowed Ione and Glaucus to carry on those sweet whispers, which are worth all the eloquence in the world. Julia watched them with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

'How soon shall her place be mine!' thought she.

But Clodius, who sat in the centre table, so as to observe well the countenance of Julia, guessed her pique, and resolved to profit by it.

He addressed her across the table in set phrases of gallantry; and as he was of high birth and of a showy person, the vain Julia was not so much in love as to be insensible to his attentions.

The slaves, in the interim, were constantly kept upon the alert by the vigilant Sall.u.s.t, who chased one cup by another with a celerity which seemed as if he were resolved upon exhausting those capacious cellars which the reader may yet see beneath the house of Diomed. The worthy merchant began to repent his choice, as amphora after amphora was pierced and emptied. The slaves, all under the age of manhood (the youngest being about ten years old--it was they who filled the wine--the eldest, some five years older, mingled it with water), seemed to share in the zeal of Sall.u.s.t; and the face of Diomed began to glow as he watched the provoking complacency with which they seconded the exertions of the king of the feast.

'Pardon me, O senator!' said Sall.u.s.t; 'I see you flinch; your purple hem cannot save you--drink!'

'By the G.o.ds,' said the senator, coughing, 'my lungs are already on fire; you proceed with so miraculous a swiftness, that Phaeton himself was nothing to you. I am infirm, O pleasant Sall.u.s.t: you must exonerate me.'

'Not I, by Vesta! I am an impartial monarch--drink.'

The poor senator, compelled by the laws of the table, was forced to comply. Alas! every cup was bringing him nearer and nearer to the Stygian pool.

'Gently! gently! my king,' groaned Diomed; 'we already begin to...'

'Treason!' interrupted Sall.u.s.t; 'no stern Brutus here!--no interference with royalty!'

'But our female guests...'

'Love a toper! Did not Ariadne dote upon Bacchus?'

The feast proceeded; the guests grew more talkative and noisy; the dessert or last course was already on the table; and the slaves bore round water with myrrh and hyssop for the finis.h.i.+ng lavation. At the same time, a small circular table that had been placed in the s.p.a.ce opposite the guests suddenly, and as by magic, seemed to open in the centre, and cast up a fragrant shower, sprinkling the table and the guests; while as it ceased the awning above them was drawn aside, and the guests perceived that a rope had been stretched across the ceiling, and that one of those nimble dancers for which Pompeii was so celebrated, and whose descendants add so charming a grace to the festivities of Astley's or Vauxhall, was now treading his airy measures right over their heads.

This apparition, removed but by a cord from one's pericranium, and indulging the most vehement leaps, apparently with the intention of alighting upon that cerebral region, would probably be regarded with some terror by a party in May Fair; but our Pompeian revellers seemed to behold the spectacle with delighted curiosity, and applauded in proportion as the dancer appeared with the most difficulty to miss falling upon the head of whatever guest he particularly selected to dance above. He paid the senator, indeed, the peculiar compliment of literally falling from the rope, and catching it again with his hand, just as the whole party imagined the skull of the Roman was as much fractured as ever that of the poet whom the eagle took for a tortoise.

At length, to the great relief of at least Ione, who had not much accustomed herself to this entertainment, the dancer suddenly paused as a strain of music was heard from without. He danced again still more wildly; the air changed, the dancer paused again; no, it could not dissolve the charm which was supposed to possess him! He represented one who by a strange disorder is compelled to dance, and whom only a certain air of music can cure. At length the musician seemed to hit on the right tune; the dancer gave one leap, swung himself down from the rope, alighted on the floor, and vanished.

One art now yielded to another; and the musicians who were stationed without on the terrace struck up a soft and mellow air, to which were sung the following words, made almost indistinct by the barrier between and the exceeding lowness of the minstrelsy:--

FESTIVE MUSIC SHOULD BE LOW

I

Hark! through these flowers our music sends its greeting To your loved halls, where Psilas shuns the day; When the young G.o.d his Cretan nymph was meeting He taught Pan's rustic pipe this gliding lay: Soft as the dews of wine Shed in this banquet hour, The rich libation of Sound's stream divine, O reverent harp, to Aphrodite pour!

II

Wild rings the trump o'er ranks to glory marching; Music's sublimer bursts for war are meet; But sweet lips murmuring under wreaths o'er-arching, Find the low whispers like their own most sweet.

Steal, my lull'd music, steal Like womans's half-heard tone, So that whoe'er shall hear, shall think to feel In thee the voice of lips that love his own.

At the end of that song Ione's cheek blushed more deeply than before, and Glaucus had contrived, under cover of the table, to steal her hand.

'It is a pretty song,' said Fulvius, patronizingly.

'Ah! if you would oblige us!' murmured the wife of Pansa.

'Do you wish Fulvius to sing?' asked the king of the feast, who had just called on the a.s.sembly to drink the health of the Roman senator, a cup to each letter of his name.

'Can you ask?' said the matron, with a complimentary glance at the poet.

Sall.u.s.t snapped his fingers, and whispering the slave who came to learn his orders, the latter disappeared, and returned in a few moments with a small harp in one hand, and a branch of myrtle in the other. The slave approached the poet, and with a low reverence presented to him the harp.

'Alas! I cannot play,' said the poet.

'Then you must sing to the myrtle. It is a Greek fas.h.i.+on: Diomed loves the Greeks--I love the Greeks--you love the Greeks--we all love the Greeks--and between you and me this is not the only thing we have stolen from them. However, I introduce this custom--I, the king: sing, subject, sing!' The poet, with a bashful smile, took the myrtle in his hands, and after a short prelude sang as follows, in a pleasant and well-tuned voice:--

THE CORONATION OF THE LOVES

I

The merry Loves one holiday Were all at gambols madly; But Loves too long can seldom play Without behaving sadly.

They laugh'd, they toy'd, they romp'd about, And then for change they all fell out.

Fie, fie! how can they quarrel so?

My Lesbia--ah, for shame, love Methinks 'tis scarce an hour ago When we did just the same, love.

II

The Loves, 'tis thought, were free till then, They had no king or laws, dear; But G.o.ds, like men, should subject be, Say all the ancient saws, dear.

And so our crew resolved, for quiet, To choose a king to curb their riot.

A kiss: ah! what a grievous thing For both, methinks, 'twould be, child, If I should take some prudish king, And cease to be so free, child!

III

Among their toys a Casque they found, It was the helm of Ares; With horrent plumes the crest was crown'd, It frightened all the Lares.

So fine a king was never known-- They placed the helmet on the throne.

My girl, since Valor wins the world, They chose a mighty master; But thy sweet flag of smiles unfurled Would win the world much faster!

IV

The Casque soon found the Loves too wild A troop for him to school them; For warriors know how one such child Has aye contrived to fool them.

They plagued him so, that in despair He took a wife the plague to share.

If kings themselves thus find the strife Of earth, unshared, severe, girl; Why just to halve the ills of life, Come, take your partner here, girl.