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Home SATYRICON |
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by Petronius
Satyricon -- Illustrated Screenplay & Screencap Gallery,
by Federico Fellini Table of Contents:
by W.C. Firebaugh (with additions) Of the many masterpieces which classical antiquity has bequeathed to modern times, few have attained... to such popularity [as] this scintillating miscellany known as the Satyricon, ascribed by tradition to that Petronius [died 66 A.D.] who, at the court of Nero, acted as arbiter of elegance and dictator of fashion. The flashing wit, the masterly touches which bring out the characters with all the detail of a fine old copper etching; the marvelous use of realism by this, its first prophet; the sure knowledge of the perspective and background best adapted to each episode; the racy style, so smooth, so elegant, so simple..., beguile the reader and blind [us], at first, to the many discrepancies and incoherences with which the text, as we have it [in fragmentary form], is marred. [Petronius] is still shrouded in the mists of uncertainty and conjecture. He is as impersonal as Shakespeare, as aloof as Flaubert, [and] as genial as Rabelais; an enigmatic genius whose secret will never be laid bare.... That the work was originally divided into books, we had long known from ancient glossaries,... the fragments [we have – all of which are given below] are excerpts from the fifteenth and sixteenth books. [This is only a small fraction of a work which may have run to several thousand pages. Since the Satyricon was unearthed in 1664, three editors have added connecting material which has popularly become part of the text. These editors' additions are noted as follows: (Nodot in parentheses), [Marchena], and {De Salas}.] Here is an outline of the novel's five parts – linked to the full, unexpurgated text – immediately followed by a detailed summary of the book. PART 1.– ADVENTURES OF
ENCOLPIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS (Chapters 1–26) |