THE SEA VOYAGE
BY PETRONIUS
The Sea Voyage is the name given on this website for ease of reference to the unnamed chapters 100 to 114 of the Satyricon by the Roman writer Petronius. It is the sixth of the seven parts into which the Satyricon is divided here.
A line of five ***** represents a gap of any length in the surviving text, which has survived only in fragments, and what is likely to have been recounted in it must be deduced or guessed. The translation is by Paul Dinnage for The Satyricon of Petronius published by Spearman & Calder of London in 1953.
100 i-ii
Encolpius, the narrator, his sixteen-year-old boyfriend Giton and Eumolpus, an old poet, have just boarded a ship together. After a break in the surviving narrative, it resumes with the reflections of Encolpius:
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“It is tiresome that the boy should so please a stranger. But after all, aren’t the best things in life common property? The sun shines on everyone. The moon and her unnumbered host of stars guide the very beasts to their pasture. Is there anything more beautiful than water? Yet it flows for all. Is love alone, then, to be more a furtive act than a bounty? No, I will have no goods at all unless the world at large sighs for them. One man, and old at that, is no serious rival. If he wants to take a liberty his short breath will be against him.” |
[100 i] “molestum est quod puer hospiti placet. quid autem? non commune est quod natura optimum fecit? sol omnibus lucet. luna innumerabilibus comitata sideribus etiam feras ducit ad pabulum. quid aquis dici formosius potest? in publico tamen manant. solus ergo amor furtum potius quam praemium erit? immo vero nolo habere bona nisi quibus populus inviderit. unus, et senex, non erit gravis; etiam cum voluerit aliquid sumere, opus anhelitu prodet.” [ii] haec ut infra fiduciam posui fraudavique animum dissidentem, coepi somnum obruto tunicula capite mentiri. |
105 vii
Encolpius belatedly discovers that the ship’s captain is an old enemy and Giton that on board is Tryphaena, a woman keen to harm him. To help disguise them, they have their heads shaved at night, but are spotted by a passenger who tells the captain. The latter orders them flogged without yet realising who they are.
| But Giton’s exceptional beauty had already disarmed the sailors and entreated these bullies better than any words, | [105 vii] iam Giton mirabili forma exarmaverat nautas coeperatque etiam sine voce saevientes rogare, |
108 ix-xi
The captain and Tryphaena then discover their real identities and a fight ensues.
| And yet the fury on either side did not abate. Then Giton valiantly turned his ugly razor on himself and threatened to lop off the part that caused all our troubles.[1] Tryphaena staved off this monstrous deed by making her pardon obvious. I myself had put my cut-throat to my neck several times, with no more intention of killing myself than Giton had of carrying out his threat. | [ix] nec tamen cuiusquam ira laxatur. [x] tunc fortissimus Giton ad virilia sua admovit novaculam infestam, minatus se abscisurum causam tot miseriarum, inhibuitque Tryphaena tam grande facinus non dissimulata missione. [xi] saepius ego cultrum tonsorium super iugulum meum posui, non magis me occisurus quam Giton quod minabatur facturus. |
113 v-xii
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By now Giton had Tryphaena on his lap, and now she covered his breast with kisses, now she adjusted her curls on his denuded head. I was in a fret, I was impatient with the new treaty, I could take no food or drink; I could only glower at the pair of them with wild, sidelong looks. Every kiss wounded me, every trick the depraved woman could invent. And still I did not know whether I was more angry with the boy for taking my mistress from me, or my mistress for corrupting my boy. Both things were most objectionable to my sight, and sadder far than my former captivity. What was more, Tryphena no longer spoke to me as an intimate, as the lover she had been so pleased to have, and Giton did not think it worth his while to drink my health as usual, or, the very least he could do, admit me to the general conversation. I think he was afraid of opening a newly-healed scar just as they were patching up their friendship. Tears of misery welled from my heart, a sigh overwhelmed a groan that almost snatched my soul away... ***** He tried to cut in and share our pleasures, not as a high and mighty master, but pestering for the favours of a friend. ***** “If you had a drop of good blood in you, you would think no more of her than of an old bag. If you were a man you would lay off this whore.”[2] ***** Nothing made me feel more ashamed than that Eumolpus might hit upon the whole situation, and that he would avenge himself in verse with a sharp-edged wit. |
[v] ceterum Tryphaena in gremio Gitonis posita modo implebat osculis pectus, interdum concinnabat spoliatum crinibus vultum. [vi] ego maestus et impatiens foederis novi non cibum, non potionem capiebam, sed obliquis trucibusque oculis utrumque spectabam. [vii] omnia me oscula vulnerabant, omnes blanditiae, quascumque mulier libidinosa fingebat. nec tamen adhuc sciebam utrum magis puero irascerer, quod amicam mihi auferret, an amicae, quod puerum corrumperet: utraque inimicissima oculis meis et captivitate praeterita tristiora. [viii] accedebat huc quod neque Tryphaena me alloquebatur tamquam familiarem et aliquando gratum sibi amatorem, nec Giton me aut tralaticia propinatione dignum iudicabat aut, quod minimum est, sermone communivocabat, credo, veritus ne inter initia coeuntis gratiae recentem cicatricem rescinderet. [ix] inundavere pectus lacrimae dolore paratae, gemitusque suspirio tectus animam paene submovit. ***** [x] in partem voluptatis temptabat admitti, nec domini supercilium induebat, sed amici quaerebat obsequium. ***** [xi] “si quid ingenui sanguinis habes, non pluris illum facies quam scortum. si vir fueris, non ibis ad spintriam.” ***** [xii] me nihil magis pudebat quam ne Eumolpus sensisset, quicquid illud fuerat, et homo dicacissimus carminibus vindicaret. |
114 viii-xii
A great storm arises. The captain is blown overboard and drowns.
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I clung to Giton, I wept and cried, “Is this all we deserve from the gods, that they unite us in death alone? But Fate cruelly refuses even that. Look, the waves are ready to capsize the ship, and now the raging sea is about to tear two close-locked lovers apart. So if your love for Encolpius was a true love, kiss him while you can, and snatch a last joy from our coming doom.” |
[114 viii] applicitus cum clamore flevi et “hoc” inquam “a diis meruimus, ut nos sola morte coniungerent. sed non crudelis fortuna concedit. [ix] ecce iam ratem fluctus evertet, ecce iam amplexus amantium iratum dividet mare. igitur, si vere Encolpion dilexisti, da oscula, dum licet: ultimum hoc gaudium fatis properantibus rape.” [x] haec ut ego dixi, Giton vestem deposuit, meaque tunica contectus exeruit ad osculum caput. et ne sic cohaerentes malignior fluctus distraheret, utrumque zona circumvenienti praecinxit et [xi] “si nihil aliud, certe diutius” inquit “iuncta nos mors feret, vel si voluerit mare misericors ad idem litus expellere, aut praeteriens aliquis tralaticia humanitate lapidabit, aut quod ultimum est iratis etiam fluctibus, imprudens harena componet.” [xii] patior ego vinculum extremum, et veluti lecto funebri aptatus expecto mortem iam non molestam. |
They are rescued from the wrecked ship by fishermen.
Continue to VII. In Croton
[1] “The part that caused all our troubles” is Giton’s cock. It is clear from this and some slightly earlier allusions that in a lost part of the story Giton and Encolpius had offended Tryphaena and the captain respectively in some sexual manner that left them feeling humiliated. Tryphaena finds Giton desirable (she was disposed to pity him because she “had not abandoned all hope of carnal pleasure”), and “her reputation for modesty [had] been flouted in public,” so perhaps he had rejected or made public an attempt by her to seduce him. The captain “had not forgotten the seduction of his wife.” a little earlier implied to do with woman’s modesty. Schmeling has “his genitals” instead of “himself”.
[2] The translation of this sentence is disputed and implicitly changes who the speaker was. The translation followed here implies that Encolpius is speaking and jealously protesting Giton’s behaviour with Tryphaena. Gareth Schmeling, however, says Tryphaena is speaking to Encolpius and translates it: “If you have a drop of noble blood, you will regard him as nothing more than a prostitute. If you are going to be a real man, you will not go to a whore” (Loeb Classical Library Volume 15, Harvard University Press, 2020) which surely makes better sense of spintriam.
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