CURATE.--A well thrown apple that golden pippin, grown doubtless from a
pip dropt on Mount Ida, and hence the name. We shall not run against
you, I perceive.
GRATIAN.--Don't talk of golden pippins, or I shall mount my hobby, and
go through the genealogy of my whole orchard, and good-bye to Catullus.
CURATE.--If you give way to your imagination, you may invent a thousand
meanings to the passage; but taking it as I find it, I would attach only
this meaning to it,--that Catullus would say, "Lesbia's favourite
sparrow" would be as attractive to me as was the golden apple which was
thrown in her way when she was racing, to Atalanta. She was to be
married to the first youth who could outrun her, so that literally she
was very much run after.
GRATIAN.--Run after, indeed! Her pursuer, Hippomanes, hadn't my
rheumatism (tapping his knee and leg with his stick) or she would have
had the apple, and not him. You young men of modern days do not throw
your golden apples, but look to pick up what you can. These old tales,
or old fables, cast a shade of shame upon our unromantic days. There was
a king's daughter offered like a "handy-cap," as if the worthy of
mankind were a racing stud.
AQUILIUS.--But the lady was not so easily won after all; for there were
three golden apples to be picked up: and a bold man was he that threw
them, for if he lost, there was neither love nor mercy for him. The
condition was worse than Sinbad's. It is a strange story this of
Atalanta and her lover, turned into lions by Cybele. The passage in
Catullus being corrupt, there is probably an omission, for, as it is,
the transition is very abrupt.
GRATIAN.--I see the golden apples running about in all directions, and
am half asleep, and should be quite so but for this rheumatic hint that
it is time to retire: so good-night.
Now you will conclude, Eusebius, that I and the Curate made a night and
morning of it. On the present occasion, at least, it was not the case;
we very soon parted.
The following morning, which for the season was freshly sunny, found us
on a seat under a verandah near the breakfast room, and close to the
aviary, from which we had a moment before come; and the Curate was then
wringing his finger after the bites and pecks the bullfinch had given
him, which Gratian told him, jocularly, was having a comment on the text
at his finger's end, and immediately asked for Catullus. The book was
opened--and the Curate put his finger upon the "Death of Lesbia's
Sparrow,"--which he read as he had thus rendered it:--