Saturnalia

But we can touch them more closely than that. May Indian gold-ants[*](Herodotus, iii. 102. ‘And in this desert and sandy tract’ (in North India) ‘are produced ants, which are in size smaller than dogs but larger than foxes... These ants there make their dwelling under ground and carry up the sand just in the same manner as the ants found in the land of the Hellenes ... and the sand which is brought up coatains gold.’—Macaulay’s translation.) come by night, unearth their hoards and convey them to their own state treasury! May their wardrobekeepers be negligent, and our good friends the mice make sievework of their raiment, fit for nothing but tunny-nets! May every pretty curled minion, every Hyacinth and Achilles and Narcissus they keep, turn bald as he hands the cup! let his hair fall off and his chin grow bristly, till he is like the peak-bearded fellows on the comic stage, hairy and prickly on cheek and temple, and on the top smooth and bare! These are specimens of the petitions we will send up, if they will not moderate their selfishness, acknowledge themselves trustees for the public, and let us have our fair share.

Henry Watson Fowler