PIEVANO ARLOTTO.
“I will invite that merry priest
Arlotto for to-morrow’s feast,”
Another, quite as merry, said,
“And you shall see his fun repaid.
When dinner’s on the board, we’ll draw
(Each of the company) a straw:
The shortest straw shall tap the wine
In cellar, while the others dine:
And now I’ll show how we’ll contrive
He draws the shortest of the five.”
They learn their lesson: there are few
Good priests (where eating goes) but do,
From Helgabalus ending with
Humour’s pink primate Sydney Smith.
Such food more suits them, truth to speak,
Than heavy joints of tough-grain’d Greek.
Well; all are seated.
“Where’s our Chianti?”
Cries one: “without it feasts are scanty.
We will draw lots then who shall go
And fill the bottles from below.”
They drew. Arlotto saw their glee,
And nought discomfited was he.
Down-stairs he went: he brought up two,
And saw his friends (as friends should do)
Enjoying their repast, and then
For the three others went again.
Although there was no long delay,
Dish after dish had waned away.
Minestra, liver fried, and raw
Delicious ham, had plumpt the maw.
Polpetti, roll’d in anise, here
Show their fat sides and disappear.
Salome, too, half mule’s half pig’s,
Moisten’d with black and yellow figs;
And maccaroni by the ell
From high-uplifted fingers fell.
Garlic and oil and cheese unite
Their concert on the appetite,
Breathing an odour which alone
The laic world might dine upon.
But never think that nought remains
To recompense Arlotto’s pains.
There surely was the nicest pie
That ever met Pievano’s eye.
Full fifty toes of ducks and geese,
Heads, gizzards, windpipes, soakt in grease,
Were in that pie, and thereupon
Sugar and salt and cinnamon;
Kid which, while living, any goat
Might look at twice and never know’t
A quarter of grill’d turkey, scored
And lean as a backgammon board,
And dark as Saint Bartholomew,
And quite as perfectly done through.
Birds that, two minutes since, were quail,
And a stupendous stew of snails.
“Brother Arlotto!” said the host,
“Here’s yet a little of our roast.
‘Brother Arlotto! never spare.”
Arlotto gaily took his chair
And readily fell to: but soon
He struck the table with a spoon,
Exclaiming, “Brother! let us now
Draw straws again. Who runs below
To stop the casks? for very soon
Little is there within, or none.”
Far flies the napkin, and our host
Is down the cellar-stairs.
“All lost!
Santa Maria! The Devil’s own trick!
Scoffer! blasphemer! heretick!
Broaching (by all the Saints) five casks
Only to fill as many flasks!
Methinks the trouble had been small
To have replaced the plugs in all.”
Arlotto heard and answer’d. “You
Forgot to tell me what to do.
But let us say no more, because
We should not quarrel about straws.
If you must play your pranks, at least
Don’t play ‘em with a brother priest.”