Weird hair, mushrooms, showers, and laughing girls

In PetroniusSatyricon, Eumolpus, drunk and trying to make fun of balding people and criminals, eventually bursts out in an ode about hair: (ch. 109, vv. 7–13):

Infelix, modo crinibus nitebas
Phoebo pulchrior et sorore Phoebi.
At nunc levior aere vel rotundo
horti tubere, quod creavit unda,
ridentes fugis et times puellas.
Ut mortem citius venire credas,
scito iam capitis perisse partem.

You wretch, a moment ago your hair shone bright, more beautiful than Apollon and Apollon’s sister. But now, smoother than bronze, or that round toadstool of the garden that a shower helped to rise, you flee and fear the girls that are laughing about you. As you believe that death shall come quickly, let it be known that part of your head has died already.

Any resemblance to reality and current events is purely coincidental.

About Peter Kruschwitz

Berliner. Classicist. Scatterbrain.
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