Editing Satyricon (section)

===Modern literature===
In the process of coming up with the title of ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]] had considered several titles for his book including "Trimalchio" and "Trimalchio in West Egg;" Fitzgerald characterizes Gatsby as Trimalchio in the novel, notably in the first paragraph of Chapter VII:
{{blockquote|It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night—and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over.<ref>F. Scott Fitzgerald. (1925). ''The Great Gatsby'', pp&nbsp;119. Scribners Trade Paperback 2003&nbsp;edition.</ref>}}

[[File:TheWasteLandEpigraph.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|The epigraph and dedication to ''[[The Waste Land]]'' showing some of the languages that T. S. Eliot used in the poem: Latin, Greek, English and Italian.]]
An early version of the novel, still titled "Trimalchio", was published by the [[Cambridge University Press]].

[[T. S. Eliot]]'s seminal poem of cultural disintegration, ''[[The Waste Land]]'', is prefaced by a verbatim quotation out of Trimalchio's account of visiting the [[Cumaean Sibyl]] (Chapter 48), a supposedly immortal prophetess whose counsel was once sought on all matters of grave importance, but whose grotto by Neronian times had become just another site of local interest along with all the usual Mediterranean [[tourist trap]]s:

{{blockquote|{{lang|la|Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumīs ego ipse oculīs meīs vīdī in ampullā pendere, et cum illī puerī dīcerent}}: "{{lang|grc|Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις;}}" {{lang|la|respondēbat illa}}: "{{lang|grc|ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.}}"}}

Arrowsmith translates:
{{blockquote|I once saw the Sibyl of Cumae in person. She was hanging in a bottle, and when the boys asked her, "Sibyl, what do you want?" she said, "I want to die."<ref>Arrowsmith, William. ''The Satyricon.'' Meridian, 1994, p. 57</ref>}}

In Isaac Asimov's short story "[[All the Troubles of the World]]", Asimov's recurring character [[Multivac]], a supercomputer entrusted with analyzing and finding solutions to the world's problems, is asked "Multivac, what do you yourself want more than anything else?" and, like the ''Satyricon'''s Sibyl when faced with the same question, responds "I want to die."

A sentence written by Petronius in a satyrical sense, to represent one of the many gross absurdities told by Trimalchio, reveals the {{lang|la|[[cupio dissolvi]]}} feeling present in some Latin literature; a feeling perfectly seized by T. S. Eliot.

[[Oscar Wilde]]'s novel, ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'', mentions "What to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the ''Satyricon'' once had been."

[[DBC Pierre]]'s novel ''[[Lights Out in Wonderland]]'' repeatedly references the ''Satyricon''.