Saturnalia

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 4. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

Ah, Cronus, there is the sting that rankles beyond endurance —that one should loll on cloth of finest purple, overload his stomach with all delicacies, and keep perpetual feast with guests to wish him joy, while I and my like dream over the problematic acquisition of a sixpence to provide us a loaf white or

v.4.p.119
brown, and send us to bed with a smack of cress or thyme or onion in our mouths, Now, good Cronus, either reform this altogether and feed us alike, or at the least induce the rich not to enjoy their good things alone; from their bushels of gold let them scatter a poor pint among us; the raiment that they would never feel the loss of though the moth were to consume it utterly, seeing that in any case it must perish by mere lapse of time, let them devote to covering our nakedness rather than to propagating mildew in their chests and drawers.