COOKS.
O'er their enjoyment? Those who use them too
Contribute all their part, if well they use them.
B. How so? Let me, O stranger, understand.
A. The duty of the cook is but to dress
And rightly season meat; and nothing more.
If, then, the man who is to eat his meat,
And judge of it, comes in proper time,
He aids the cook in that his business.
But if he come too late, so that the joint
Already roasted must be warm'd again,
Or if he come too soon, so that the cook
Is forced to roast the meat with undue haste,
He spoils the pleasure which he might have had
From the cook's skill by his unpunctuality.
I class a cook among philosophers;
You're standing round; my fire is alight;
See how the numerous dogs of Vulcan's pack
Leap to the roof; . . .
. . . You know what happens next:
And so some unforeseen necessity
Has brought on us alone this end of life.
24. But Euphron, whom I mentioned a little while ago, O judges, (for I do not hesitate to call you judges, while awaiting the decision of your sense,) in his play called the Brothers, having represented a certain cook as a well-educated man of extensive learning, and enumerating all the artists before his time, and what particular excellence each of them had, and what he surpassed the rest in, still never mentioned anything of such a nature as I have frequently prepared for you. Accordingly, he speaks as follows—
I have, ere this, had many pupils, Lycus,
Because I've always had both wit and knowledge;
But you, the youngest of them all, are now
Leaving my house an all-accomplish'd cook
In less than forty weeks. There was the Rhodian
Agis, the best of cooks to roast a fish;
Nereus, the Chian, could a conger boil
Fit for the gods: Charides, of Athens,
Could season forcemeat of the whitest hue:
Black broth was first devised by Lamprias;
Sausages rich we owe to Aphthonetus;
Euthunus taught us to make lentil soup;
Aristion made out whole bills of fare
For those who like a picnic entertainment.
So, like those grave philosophers of old,
These are our seven wisest of all cooks.
But I, for all the other ground I saw
