'
HERBERT.
And the father-king?
WALTER MAP.
The father's eye was so tender it would have called a goose off the
green, and once he strove to hide his face, like the Greek king when
his daughter was sacrificed, but he thought better of it: it was but
the sacrifice of a kingdom to his son, a smaller matter; but as to the
young crownling himself, he looked so malapert in the eyes, that had I
fathered him I had given him more of the rod than the sceptre. Then
followed the thunder of the captains and the shouting, and so we came
on to the banquet, from whence there puffed out such an incense of
unctuosity into the nostrils of our Gods of Church and State, that
Lucullus or Apicius might have sniffed it in their Hades of
heathenism, so that the smell of their own roast had not come across
it--
HERBERT.
Map, tho' you make your butt too big, you overshoot it.
WALTER MAP.
--For as to the fish, they de-miracled the miraculous draught, and
might have sunk a navy--
HERBERT.
There again, Goliasing and Goliathising!
WALTER MAP.
--And as for the flesh at table, a whole Peter's sheet, with all
manner of game, and four-footed things, and fowls--
HERBERT.
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