Bureaucratese et cetera

Plucking some pearls of wisdom from Schmeling's commentary on Tuesday's assignment... direct quotations from Schmeling are in quotation marks.

The unnamed guest sitting speaking to Encolpius here is Hermeros, who has quite a bit to say later.
Trimalchio's pun on "Carpe" in 36 has so disgusted Encolpius that he has lost his appetite.

modo modo:  just a little while ago.  ignoscet mihi genius tuus:  "We find here the added nicety of addressing another person in the polite third person (instead of the more usual second person) via his guardian spirit.  With the rise of formality at the later imperial court, adressing officials in the third person via an abstract noun, and with a verb in the future or the optative, becomes so unwieldy that the modern reader is unsure of what the point of the plea is."--a form of bureaucratese nicely overladen with sycophancy.

topanta-- probably a corruption of Greek ta panta, 'everything'.   "In his magisterial work, Palmer (1954) 151-2 uses this expression as one of his points of departure in commenting on the whole range of vulgarisms in the S., which mark the long and colourful history of the Latin language: 'Whereas Cicero reflects the sermo cottidianus of educated Romans, in the conversation of hosts and guests at Petronius' Cena we catch a whiff of the gutter.'"

sicca, sobria:  "'thrifty and sound'.  These words, siccus and sobrius, appear together in Martial 12.30.1; Seneca Beata Vita 12.4, Ep.18.4, 114.3."

vides tantum auri:  "If the expression refers to Fortunata herself, it could be translated 'you see as much gold [as she weighs]'...If the expression refers to all the wealth in the dining-room (or T's house or estate), it could be translated 'you see all this gold which she watches over.'"

malae linguae:  "with a hint of malicious quality; often with a connotation of evil, originally referring to magic spells as in Catullus 7.12."  pica pulvinaris:  a mapgpie on a couch.  "Both Fortunata and the pica are acquisitive and talkative.  In English, French, and Italian, 'magpie', pie, and gazza are still associated with chattering.  The word gazette comes in fact from the Italian gazza."

milvus:  the kite, a bird of prey (not to be confused with the toy)

"Kites (also at 42.7, 45.9, 75.6) can fly great distances...and they are also ruthless birds of prey."

nummorum nummos:  This reduplication is perhaps a Semitic way of securing emphasis; 'holy of holies.  It is not uncommon in classical Greek...but not so common in Latin:  43.8, olim oliorum; Plautus Capt. 825, regum rex regalior; Cicero Div.1.66, mulier melior mulierum..."

quemvis ex istis babaecalis in rutae folium coniciet:  Schm. conjectures that babaecalis may mean 'flatterers' or 'Smart Alecs.'  the expression in rutum foliae conicere is repeated at 58.5, (also Hermeros speaking).  Two suggestions as to what "to throw someone into a leaf of rue" might mean are a) to add to a cooking pot, as conicere frequently is used in recipes to mean to add to a pot, and rue is a very common herb in Roman cuisine, or b) because a rue leaf is small, something like "to put in a tight spot".  

Ruta graveolens, or rue

Rue is one of the ingredients in Moretum, the pseudo-Vergilian poem about making pesto (English translation here.  A modernized recipe here-- this might be a good choice for a Petronian feast).  

lacte gallinaceum:  How did Trimalchio's estates produce chicken milk?  Maybe they developed this technology:

ex India semen boletorum:  Mushrooms do not have seeds.  If the Satyricon dates from the Neronian period, mention of the boletus would likely remind readers of the death of Nero's predecessor, Claudius.  Nero jokingly called the boletus "the food of the gods" because it hastened the apotheosis of Claudius.  Cf. Juvenal Sat. 5.146-8:

uilibus ancipites fungi ponentur amicis,
boletus domino, sed quales Claudius edit
ante illum uxoris, post quem nihil amplius edit.

nam mulam quidem nullam habet quae non ex onagro nata sit:  Mules sired by onagers (wild asses) were supposed to be the best:  Pliny NH 8.69: "From the union of the mare and the wild ass, when it has been domesticated, a mule is produced which is remarkably swift in running, and has extremely hard feet, and a thin body, while it has a spirit that is quite indomitable. The very best stallion of all, however, for this purpose, is one produced from a union of the wild ass and the female domesticated ass."