Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #411336 in Books
• Published on: 1983-11-01
• Original language: Latin
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

A Burlesque Satire
Petronius' Satyricon is a unique satire on decadence and pleasure. Although the story takes place during Nero's reign, one begins to see that many of the scenes have relevance to today's society and its own debaucheries.

The story follows the adventures of Aschyltus and Encolpio; two rhetoricians who are on an infinite quest for pleasure. Their frienship is challenged by their mutual attraction to Giton, a scoundrelous slave-boy who seems to have more wits and vices than all of the other characters. This triad of debauches is also joined by Emolpus, a trickster and pseudo-intellectual who's always scheming on how he can use his sophistry to hit the jack pot. The most memorable scene in the fragmentary work is Trimalchio's dinner; this chapter surprisingly brings the ancient past closer to modern times in its recital of the characters' casual conversations on money, opportunism, business, and, of course, pleasure.

Although some readers have complained that Arrowsmith's translation isn't faithful to some of the Latin terms, the truth is (as is the case with any other foreign works) that some of the words don't have a counterpart in the English language (or any other modern language.) It is therefore the duty of the translator to use his poetic licence in conjuring the best phrase or sentence that can convey the theme or jist of the statement in question. I personally found this translation the most faithful in trying to convey the type of low-brow humor and puns that Petronius seems to have intended in his work. I strongly recommend this translation above other for that reason.

The arbiter of style and a certain dork genius.
First of all the title. Do not be tempted to believe it comes from the word "satura", meaning medley. Very little of the book survives and no one is in the position to state that the book is a medley of stories. Certainly, if any inferences can be made, they would point the reader in the opposite direction since the story, as we have it so far, follows Encolpius, Ascyltos and Giton throughout. The title is more likely a reference to Satyr tales, a form of early entertainment. This makes a lot more sense, especially when one realizes that Satyrs usually accompanied Dionysus, the god of wine and all around party animal. If you remember that satyrs generally represent the untamed and orgiastic lust for life the book will start to make a lot more sense.

The Satyricon was written in...I guess early late antiquity? (60 AD or so) and apparently very little of it survives intact but the one part that has done so is the one that describes dinner at Trimalchio's house, a dinner which finds some of our protagonists guests at a feast. There is a very good essay on this piece in Erich Aurebach's "Mimesis" entitled "Fortunata" and the serious reader is encouraged to read it :)

The subtitle of "Mimesis" is "The Representation of Reality in Western Literature" and Auerbach picked Petronius' work precisely because the arbiter of style was uncommonly well tuned to the way everyday people acted and talked. Think of him, if you will, as an early Mark Twain or Ricky Gervais and you won't be too far off the mark.

There are numerous reviews of The Satyricon on amazon.com and the majority of them do a perfectly good job of encapsulating the story for you so I won't bother with that job. Instead, I will deal with a certain "Dark Genius" who wrote a horrendous review of this book.

First of all, he refers to Petronius as "Polonius". That's crime numero uno. Second of all, he "was troubled by the translator's numerous admissions at having sacrificed the original Latin for today's English". Even donkey handlers might imagine that certain terms are completely impossible to translate but apparently "Dork Genius" does not. That's crime number two.

He further complains that "The largest whole section describes a banquet held by a rich former slave; the incredible ostentatiousness of the proceedings is matched only by its overtly perverse sexual nature. This text eventually overwhelmed my desire to interpret it as a product of its age. While the jokes are not funny and the satire is too obscure for my true understanding and doubtful appreciation, the constant dirty jokes and sexual references quite sabotaged the story for me."

Good God, there are so many idiotic comments in that paragraph that one might devote voluminous tomes towards dealing with them. "Perverse sexual nature"? Perhaps "Dork Genius" should put down his copy of "George Bush's Faith" (yes he reviewed it and gave it 5 stars) and move beyond a Christian reading of a non Christian work. If the satire is too obscure why is his appreciation for it in doubt? My suggestion would be if it's too obscure, a book on Petronius or Nero would've enlightened him but he's been busy reading Ann Coulter and reviewing her "book" to the tune of 5 stars instead.

Lastly, and this is only because I grow tired of wasting time on this "Dark Genius", the careful reader would have noticed a couple of things right off the bat: When one sees the name of the work, Satyricon, one hopefully realizes that they'll be reading something not at all serious and probably suggestive or sexual in nature. "Dark Genius" does not and as a result breaks Petronius' rule which warns that prudes need not apply as critics.

On the other hand when one comes across a review in which Stephen King's "The Stand" is compared to "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" (yes, "dork genius" actually does this) one should expect an unprecedented amount of stupidity. But what else can one expect from a person who gives "The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection" a five star review and Petronius' Satyricon a two star review? The end of the world perhaps?

Just because it's ancient doesn't mean it's any good
Having run across this singular work for the first time, I imagined that it would be as funny as the jacket described and less raunchy than I expected. I was completely wrong. In fairness to the text, it is woefully incomplete, consisting mainly of fragments from some of its later volumes. Some call this the first novel, and it must have been incredibly lengthy in its original state. What we have today is the story of a unwholesome youth who obsesses in his love for his homosexual lover Giton but engages in general ribaldry with all sorts of men (and sometimes even women). At some point in the tale, he is cursed with impotence (although the story never describes conditions of this type in any sort of subdued language) and bewails his constant state of bad luck and persecution while seeking a cure for his condition. Because even this existing text is fragmented, the story is sometimes hard to follow due to gaping holes in the narrative. The largest whole section describes a banquet held by a rich former slave; the incredible ostentatiousness of the proceedings is matched only by its overtly perverse sexual nature. This text eventually overwhelmed my desire to interpret it as a product of its age. While the jokes are not funny and the satire is too obscure for my true understanding and doubtful appreciation, the constant dirty jokes and sexual references quite sabotaged the story for me.

I was troubled by the translator's numerous admissions at having sacrificed the original Latin for today's English. While I understand his desire to make the work readable and understandable to a modern audience, I would much prefer to have a more literal translation--if for no other reason than to know whether the juvenile references contained herein date back to Polonius or to the modern translator. While Rome itself can certainly not be judged by one satirical work, this book does succeed in casting a shadow of immorality on the ancient Romans. I really cannot recommend this book. Even those seeking prurient pleasures and nothing else will be disappointed.