The Satyricon E-Book

Petronius Arbiter

• Herausgeber: Qasim Idrees
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Satyricon is one of the most outrageous and strikingly modern works to have survived from the ancient world. Most likely written by an advisor of Nero, it recounts the adventures of Encolpius and his companions as they travel around Italy, encountering courtesans, priestesses, con men, brothel-keepers, pompous professors ­and, above all, Trimalchio, the nouveau riche millionaire whose debauched feasting and pretentious vulgarity make him one of the great comic characters in literature. 

Leseprobe

The Satyricon

Petronius Arbiter

Translated By William Burnaby

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My Lord,

Good men think the meanest friend no more to be dispis'd, than the politick the meanest enemy; and the generous would be as inquisitive to discover an unknown esteem for 'em, as the cautious an unknown hatred: This I say to plead myself into the number of those you know for your admirers; and that the world may know it, give me leave to present you with a translation of Petronius, and to absolve all my offences against him, by introducing him into so agreeable company. You're happy, my Lord, in the most elegant part of his character, in the gallantry and wit of a polite gentleman, mixt with the observation and conduct of a man of publik employments; And since all share the benefit of you,'tis the duty of all to confess their sence of it, I had almost said, to return, as they cou'd, the favour, and like a true author, made that my gratitude which may prove your trouble: But what flatters me most out of the apprehensions of your dislike, is the gentleman-like pleasantry of the work, where you meet with variety of ridicule on the subject of Nero's court, an agreeable air of humour in a ramble through schools, bagnio's temples, and markets; wit and gallantry in armours, with moral reflections on almost every accident of humane life. In short, my Lord, I shall be very proud to please a Sidney, an house fertile, of extraordinary genio's, whose every member deserves his own Sir Philip to celebrate him; whose characters are romances to the rest of mankind, but real life in his own family.

I am, my Lord,Your Lordships most devotedHumble Servant, W. BURNABY.



THE PREFACE

The Moors ('tis said) us'd to cast their newborn children into the sea, and only if they swam would think 'em worth their care; but mine, with more neglect, I turn into the world, for sink or swim, I have done all I design'd for't. I have already, with as much satisfaction as Aeneas in a cloud heard Dido praise him, heard the Beaux-Criticks condemn this translation before they saw it, and with as much judgment as if they had: And after they had prophetically discover'd all the flaws in the turns of thought, the cadence of periods, and had almost brought in Epick and