So we drank our wine and admired all this luxury in good set terms. Then the slave brought in a silver skeleton, so artfully fitted with its articulations and vertebrae were all movable and would turn and twist in any direction. After he had tossed this once or twice on the table, causing the loosely jointed limbs to take various postures, Trimalchio moralized thus:

Alas! how less than naught are we;

Fragile life’s thread, and brief our day!

What this is now, we all shall be;

Drink and make merry while you may.

Our applause was interrupted by the second course, which did not by any means come up to our expectations. Still the oddity of the thing drew the eyes of all. An immense circular tray bore the twelve signs of the zodiac displayed round the circumference, on each of which the Manoiple or Arranger had placed a dish of suitable and appropriate viands: on the Ram ram’s-head pease, on the Bull a piece of beef, on the Twins fried testicles and kidneys, on the Crab simply a Crown, on the Lion African figs, on a Virgin a sow’s haslet, (on Libra a balance with a tart in one scale and a cheese-cake in the other, on Scorpio a small sea-fish, on Sagittarius an eye-seeker, on Capricornus a lobster, on Aquarius a wild goose, on Pisces two mullets. In the middle was a sod of green turf) cut to shape and supporting a honeycomb. Meanwhile an Egyptian slave was carrying bread round in a miniature oven of silver, crooning to himself in a horrible voice a song in praise of wine and laserpitium.

Seeing us look rather blank at the idea of attacking such common fare, Trimalchio cried, “I pray you gentlemen, begin; the best of your dinner is before you.” No sooner had he spoken than four fellows ran prancing in, keeping time to the music, and whipped off the top part of the tray. This done, we beheld underneath, on a second tray in fact, stuffed capons, a sow’s paps, and as a centrepiece a hare fitted with wings to represent Pegasus. We noticed besides four figures of Marsyas, one at each corner of the tray, carrying little wine-skins which spouted out peppered fish-sauce over the fishes swimming in the Channel of the dish.