Petronius Arbiter, 20-66 / 2008-07-14 00:00:00
EBOOK, THE SATYRICON ***
This eBook was produced by Gordon Keener.
The Satyricon
Petronius Arbiter
Translated by William Burnaby
Introduction by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
ON READING PETRONIUS
AN OPEN LETTER TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN
My dear --------,
On a bright afternoon in summer, when we stand on the high ground
above Saint Andrew's, and look seaward for the Inchcape Rock, we can
discern at first nothing at all, and then, if the day favours us, an
occasional speck of whiteness, lasting no longer than the wave that is
reflecting a ray of sunlight upwards against the indistinguishable
tower. But if we were to climb the hill again after dinner, you would
have something to report. So, in the broad daylights of humanity,
such as that Victorian Age in which you narrowly escaped being (and I
was) born, when the landscape is as clear as on Frith's Derby Day, the
ruined tower of Petronius stands unremarked; it is only when the dark
night of what is called civilisation has gathered that his clear beam
can penetrate the sky. Such a night was the Imperial Age in Rome,
when this book was written; such was the Renaissance Age in Italy,
when the manuscript in which the greater part of what has survived is
only to be found was copied; such, again, was the Age of Louis XIV in
France, of the Restoration, and the equally cynical Revolution in
England, during which this manuscript, by the fortune of war, was
discovered at Trau in Dalmatia, copied, edited, printed, in rapid
succession, at Padua, Paris, Upsala, Leipzig and Amsterdam, and,
lastly, "made English by Mr.
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