COOKERY.
Nor do they always the same pleasure give.
Archestratus has written on this art,
And is by many people highly thought of,
As having given us a useful treatise;
But still there's much of which he's ignorant,
And all his rules are really good for nothing,
So do not mind or yield to all the rules
Which he has laid down most authoritatively,
For a more empty lot of maxims you
Will hardly find. For when you write a book
On cookery, it will not do to say,
"As I was just now saying;" for this art
Has no fix'd guide but opportunity,
And must itself its only mistress be.
But if your skill be ne'er so great, and yet
You let the opportunity escape,
Your art is lost, and might as well be none.
B. O man, you're wise. But as for this man who
You just now said was coming here to try
His hand at delicate banquets, say, does he
Forget to come?
A. If I but make you now
One forced meat ball, I can in that small thing
Give you a specimen of all my skill.
And I will serve you up a meal which shall
Be redolent of the Athenian breezes.
Dost fear that I shall fail to lull your soul
With dishes of sufficient luxury?
70. And to all this Æmilianus makes answer—
My friend, you've made a speech quite long enough
In praising your fav'rite art of cookery;—
as Hegesippus says in his Brethren. Do you then—
Give us now something new to see beyond
Your predecessor's art, or plague us not;
But show me what you've got, and tell its name.
And he rejoins—
You look down on me, since I am a cook.
But perhaps—
What I have made by practising my art—
according to the comic poet Demetrius, who, in his play entitled The Areopagite, has spoken as follows—
What I have made by practising my art
Is more than any actor e'er has gain'd,—
This smoky art of mine is quite a kingdom.
I was a caper-pickler with Seleucus,
And at the court of the Sicilian king,
