Chapter 15

_Enter a_ LAD, _a servant of_ HEGIO.

LAD. May Jupiter and the Deities confound you, Ergasilus, and your stomach, and all Parasites, and _every one_ who henceforth shall give a dinner to Parasites. Destruction and devastation _and_ ruin have just now entered our house. I was afraid that he would be making an attack on me, as though he had been an hungry wolf. And very dreadfully, upon my faith, was I frightened at him; he made such a gnashing with his teeth. On his arrival, the whole larder, with the meat, he turned upside down. He seized a knife, and first cut off the kernels of the neck [1] from three sides. All the pots and cups he broke, except those that held a couple of gallons [2]; of the cook he made enquiry whether the salting pans could _be set on the fire_ to be made hot. All the cellars in the house he has broken into, and has laid the store-closet [3] open. (_At the door._) Watch him, servants, if you please; I'll go to meet the old gentleman. I'll tell him to get ready some provisions for his own self, if, indeed, he wishes himself to make use of any. For in this place, as this man, indeed, is managing, either there's nothing already, or very soon there will be nothing. (_Exit._

[Footnote 1: _The kernels of the neck_)--Ver. 920. The "glandia" were the kernels or tonsils of the throat, situate just below the root of the tongue. These portions of the dead pig seem to have been much prized as delicate eating. Judging from the present passage, the whole side of the pig, including the half-head, was salted and dried in one piece: The first thing that the Parasite does, is to cut the kernels from off of three sides, which he has relieved from the punishment of hanging.]

[Footnote 2: _A couple of gallons_)--Ver. 921. "Modiales." Literally, containing a "modius," which contained sixteen sextarii, something more than a peck of dry-measure English.]

[Footnote 3: _The store-closet_)--Ver. 923. "Armarium" was to called because it was originally a place for keeping arms. It afterwards came to signify a cupboard in a wall, in which clothes, books, money, and other articles of value, were placed. It was generally in the "atrium," or principal room of the house. In this instance it evidently means the store-closet, distinguished from the larder and the]