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The Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 01

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Title: The Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 01

Author: of Samosata Lucian

Translator: F. G. Fowler
        H. W. Fowler


        
Release date: August 1, 2004 [eBook #6327]
                Most recently updated: April 8, 2023

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6327

Credits: Beth Constantine, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA — VOLUME 01 ***




THE WORKS OF LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA

Complete with exceptions specified in the preface




TRANSLATED BY

H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER




IN FOUR VOLUMES




What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren domestic
soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the fewest are
privileged to do.—_Sarlor Resartus_.

At each flaw, be this your first thought: the author doubtless said something
quite different, and much more to the point. And then you may hiss _me_
off, if you will.—LUCIAN, _Nigrinus, 9_.

(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit.—_Lord
Macaulay_.




VOLUME I




PREFACE


The text followed in this translation is that of Jacobitz, Teubner,
1901, all deviations from which are noted.

In the following list of omissions, italics denote that the piece is
marked as spurious both by Dindorf and by Jacobitz. The other omissions
are mainly by way of expurgation. In a very few other passages some
isolated words and phrases have been excised; but it has not been
thought necessary to mark these in the texts by asterisks.

_Halcyon_; Deorum Dialogi, iv, v, ix, x, xvii, xxii, xxiii; Dialogi
Marini, xiii; Vera Historia, I. 22, II. 19; Alexander, 41,42; Eunuchus;
_De Astrologia_; _Amores_; _Lucius_ sive _Asinus_; Rhetorum Preceptor,
23; _Hippias_; Adversus Indoctum, 23; Pseudologista; _Longaevi_;
Dialogi Meretricii, v, vi, x; De Syria Dea; _Philopatris; Charidemus;
Nero_; Tragodopodagra; Ocypus; Epigrammata.

A word may be said about four pieces that seem to stand apart from the
rest. Of these, the _Trial in the Court of Vowels_ and _A Slip of the
Tongue_ will be interesting only to those who are familiar with Greek.
The _Lexiphanes_ and _A Purist Purized_, satirizing the pedants and
euphuists of Lucian's day, almost defy translation, and they must be
accepted at best as an effort to give the general effect of the
original.

The _Notes explanatory_ at the end of vol. iv will be used by the
reader at his discretion. Reference is made to them at the foot of the
page only when it is not obvious what name should be consulted.

The translators take this opportunity of offering their heartiest
thanks to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for undertaking this
work; and, in particular, to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University,
Dr. Merry, who has been good enough to read the proofs, and to give
much valuable advice both on the difficult subject of excision and on
details of style and rendering. In this connexion, however, it should
be added that for the retention of many modern phrases, which may
offend some readers as anachronistic, responsibility rests with the
translators alone.


CONTENTS of VOL. I


 PREFACE
 INTRODUCTION
 THE VISION
 A LITERARY PROMETHEUS
 NIGRINUS
 TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS
 TIMON THE MISANTHROPE
 PROMETHEUS ON CAUCASUS
 DIALOGUES OF THE GODS
i, ii, iii, vi, vii, viii, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, xix, xx,
xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvi.
 DIALOGUES OF THE SEA-GODS
i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii, xiv, xv.
 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII,
XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX,
XXX.
 MENIPPUS
 CHARON
 OF SACRIFICE
 SALE OF CREEDS
 THE FISHER
 VOYAGE TO THE LOWER WORLD



INTRODUCTION

1. LIFE.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS.
3. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIME.
4. LUCIAN AS A WRITER.


It is not to be understood that all statements here made are either
ascertained facts or universally admitted conjectures. The introduction
is intended merely to put those who are not scholars, and probably have
not books of reference at hand, in a position to approach the
translation at as little disadvantage as may be. Accordingly, we give
the account that commends itself to us, without discussion or reference
to authorities. Those who would like a more complete idea of Lucian
should read Croiset's _Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres de Lucien_, on
which the first two sections of this introduction are very largely
based. The only objections to the book (if they are objections) are
that it is in French, and of 400 octavo pages. It is eminently
readable.

1. LIFE

With the exception of a very small number of statements, of which the
truth is by no means certain, all that we know of Lucian is derived
from his own writings. And any reader who prefers to have his facts at
first rather than at second hand can consequently get them by reading
certain of his pieces, and making the natural deductions from them.
Those that contain biographical matter are, in the order corresponding
to the periods of his life on which they throw light, _The Vision,
Demosthenes, Nigrinus, The Portrait-study_ and _Defence_ (in which
Lucian is _Lycinus_), _The Way to write History, The double Indictment_
(in which he is _The Syrian_), _The Fisher_ (_Parrhesiades_), _Swans
and Amber, Alexander_, _Hermotimus_ (_Lycinus_), _Menippus and
Icaromenippus_ (in which _Menippus_ represents him), _A literary
Prometheus, Herodotus, Zeuxis, Harmonides, The Scythian_, _The Death of
Peregrine_, _The Book-fancier_, _Demonax_, _The Rhetorician's Vade
mecum_, _Dionysus_, _Heracles_, _A Slip of the Tongue_, _Apology for
'The dependent Scholar.'_ Of these _The Vision_ is a direct piece of
autobiography; there is intentional but veiled autobiography in several
of the other pieces; in others again conclusions can be drawn from
comparison of his statements with facts known from external sources.

Lucian lived from about 125 to about 200 A.D., under the Roman Emperors
Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and perhaps
Pertinax. He was a Syrian, born at Samosata on the Euphrates, of
parents to whom it was of importance that he should earn his living
without spending much time or money on education. His maternal uncle
being a statuary, he was apprenticed to him, having shown an aptitude
for modelling in the wax that he surreptitiously scraped from his
school writing-tablets. The apprenticeship lasted one day. It is clear
that he was impulsive all through life; and when his uncle corrected
him with a stick for breaking a piece of marble, he ran off home,
disposed already to think he had had enough of statuary. His mother
took his part, and he made up his mind by the aid of a vision that came
to him the same night.

It was the age of the rhetoricians. If war was not a thing of the past,
the shadow of the _pax Romana_ was over all the small states, and the
aspiring provincial's readiest road to fame was through words rather
than deeds. The arrival of a famous rhetorician to lecture was one of
the important events in any great city's annals; and Lucian's works are
full of references to the impression these men produced, and the envy
they enjoyed. He himself was evidently consumed, during his youth and
early manhood, with desire for a position like theirs. To him, sleeping
with memories of the stick, appeared two women, corresponding to
_Virtue_ and _Pleasure_ in Prodicus's _Choice of Heracles_—the working
woman _Statuary_, and the lady _Culture_. They advanced their claims to
him in turn; but before _Culture_ had completed her reply, the choice
was made: he was to be a rhetorician. From her reminding him that she
was even now not all unknown to him, we may perhaps assume that he
spoke some sort of Greek, or was being taught it; but he assures us
that after leaving Syria he was still a barbarian; we have also a
casual mention of his offering a lock of his hair to the Syrian goddess
in his youth.

He was allowed to follow his bent and go to Ionia. Great Ionian cities
like Smyrna and Ephesus were full of admired sophists or teachers of
rhetoric. But it is unlikely that Lucian's means would have enabled him
to become the pupil of these. He probably acquired his skill to a great
extent by the laborious method, which he ironically deprecates in _The
Rhetorician's Vade mecum_, of studying exhaustively the old Attic
orators, poets, and historians.

He was at any rate successful. The different branches that a
rhetorician might choose between or combine were: (1) Speaking in court
on behalf of a client; (2) Writing speeches for a client to deliver;
(3) Teaching pupils; (4) Giving public displays of his skill. There is
a doubtful statement that Lucian failed in (1), and took to (2) in
default. His surviving rhetorical pieces (_The Tyrannicide, The
Disinherited, Phalaris_) are declamations on hypothetical cases which
might serve either for (3) or (4); and _The Hall, The Fly, Dipsas_, and
perhaps _Demosthenes_, suggest (4). A common form of exhibition was for
a sophist to appear before an audience and let them propose subjects,
of which he must choose one and deliver an impromptu oration upon it.

Whatever his exact line was, he earned an income in Ionia, then in
Greece, had still greater success in Italy, and appears to have settled
for some time in Gaul, perhaps occupying a professorial chair there.
The intimate knowledge of Roman life in some aspects which appears in
_The dependent Scholar_ suggests that he also lived some time in Rome.
He seems to have known some Latin, since he could converse with boatmen
on the Po; but his only clear reference (_A Slip of the Tongue_, 13)
implies an imperfect knowledge of it; and there is not a single mention
in all his works, which are crammed with literary allusions, of any
Latin author. He claims to have been during his time in Gaul one of the
rhetoricians who could command high fees; and his descriptions of
himself as resigning his place close about his lady's (i.e. Rhetoric's)
person, and as casting off his wife Rhetoric because she did not keep
herself exclusively to him, show that he regarded himself, or wished to
be regarded, as having been at the head of his profession.

This brings us to about the year 160 A.D. We may conceive Lucian now to
have had some of that yearning for home which he ascribes in the
_Patriotism_ even to the successful exile. He returned home, we
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing the
fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_. He may then have lived at
Antioch as a rhetorician for some years, of which we have a memorial in
_The Portrait-study_. Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius's colleague, was at
Antioch in 162 or 163 A.D. on his way to the Parthian war, and _The
Portrait-study_ is a panegyric on Verus's mistress Panthea, whom Lucian
saw there.

A year or two later we find him migrating to Athens, taking his father
with him, and at Athens he settled and remained many years. It was on
this journey that the incident occurred, which he relates with such a
curious absence of shame in the _Alexander_, of his biting that
charlatan's hand.

This change in his manner of life corresponds nearly with the change in
habit of mind and use of his powers that earned him his immortality.
His fortieth year is the date given by himself for his abandonment of
Rhetoric and, as he calls it, taking up with Dialogue, or, as we might
say, becoming a man of letters. Between Rhetoric and Dialogue there was
a feud, which had begun when Socrates five centuries before had fought
his battles with the sophists. Rhetoric appeals to the emotions and
obscures the issues (such had been Socrates's position); the way to
elicit truth is by short question and answer. The Socratic method,
illustrated by Plato, had become, if not the only, the accredited
instrument of philosophers, who, so far as they are genuine, are
truth-seekers; Rhetoric had been left to the legal persons whose object
is not truth but victory. Lucian's abandonment of Rhetoric was
accordingly in some sort his change from a lawyer to a philosopher. As
it turned out, however, philosophy was itself only a transitional stage
with him.

Already during his career as a rhetorician, which we may put at 145-164
A.D., he seems both to have had leanings to philosophy, and to have
toyed with dialogue. There is reason to suppose that the _Nigrinus_,
with its strong contrast between the noise and vulgarity of Rome and
the peace and culture of Athens, its enthusiastic picture of the charm
of philosophy for a sensitive and intelligent spirit, was written in
150 A.D., or at any rate described an incident that occurred in that
year; and the _Portrait-study_ and its _Defence_, dialogues written
with great care, whatever their other merits, belong to 162 or 163 A.D.
But these had been excursions out of his own province. After settling
at Athens he seems to have adopted the writing of dialogues as his
regular work. The _Toxaris_, a collection of stories on friendship,
strung together by dialogue, the _Anacharsis_, a discussion on the
value of physical training, and the _Pantomime_, a description slightly
relieved by the dialogue form, may be regarded as experiments with his
new instrument. There is no trace in them of the characteristic use
that he afterwards made of dialogue, for the purposes of satire.

That was an idea that we may suppose to have occurred to him after the
composition of the _Hermotimus_. This is in form the most philosophic
of his dialogues; it might indeed be a dialogue of Plato, of the merely
destructive kind; but it is at the same time, in matter, his farewell
to philosophy, establishing that the pursuit of it is hopeless for
mortal man. From this time onward, though he always professes himself a
lover of true philosophy, he concerns himself no more with it, except
to expose its false professors. The dialogue that perhaps comes next,
_The Parasite_, is still Platonic in form, but only as a parody; its
main interest (for a modern reader is outraged, as in a few other
pieces of Lucian's, by the disproportion between subject and treatment)
is in the combination for the first time of satire with dialogue.

One more step remained to be taken. In the piece called _A literary
Prometheus_, we are told what Lucian himself regarded as his claim to
the title of an original writer. It was the fusing of Comedy and
Dialogue—the latter being the prose conversation hat had hitherto been
confined to philosophical discussion. The new literary form, then, was
conversation, frankly for purposes of entertainment, as in Comedy, but
to be read and not acted. In this kind of writing he remains, though he
has been often imitated, first in merit as clearly as in time; and
nearly all his great masterpieces took this form. They followed in
rapid succession, being all written, perhaps, between 165 and 175 A.D.
And we make here no further comment upon them, except to remark that
they fall roughly into three groups as he drew inspiration successively
from the writers of the New Comedy (or Comedy of ordinary life) like
Menander, from the satires of Menippus, and from writers of the Old
Comedy (or Comedy of fantastic imagination) like Aristophanes. The best
specimens of the first group are _The Liar_ and the _Dialogues of the
Hetaerae;_ of the second, the _Dialogues of the Dead_ and _of the Gods,
Menippus_ and _Icaromenippus, Zeus cross-examined;_ of the third,
_Timon, Charon, A Voyage to the lower World, The Sale of Creeds, The
Fisher, Zeus Tragoedus, The Cock, The double Indictment, The Ship_.

During these ten or more years, though he lived at Athens, he is to be
imagined travelling occasionally, to read his dialogues to audiences in
various cities, or to see the Olympic Games. And these excursions gave
occasion to some works not of the dialogue kind; the _Zeuxis_ and
several similar pieces are introductions to series of readings away
from Athens; The _Way to write History_, a piece of literary criticism
still very readable, if out of date for practical purposes, resulted
from a visit to Ionia, where all the literary men were producing
histories of the Parthian war, then in progress (165 A.D.). An
attendance at the Olympic Games of 169 A.D. suggested _The Death of
Peregrine_, which in its turn, through the offence given to Cynics, had
to be supplemented by the dialogue of _The Runaways. The True History_,
most famous, but, admirable as it is, far from best of his works,
presumably belongs to this period also, but cannot be definitely
placed. The _Book-fancier_ and _The Rhetorician's Vade mecum_ are
unpleasant records of bitter personal quarrels.

After some ten years of this intense literary activity, producing,
reading, and publishing, Lucian seems to have given up both the writing
of dialogues and the presenting of them to audiences, and to have lived
quietly for many years. The only pieces that belong here are the _Life
of Demonax_, the man whom he held the best of all philosophers, and
with whom he had been long intimate at Athens, and that of Alexander,
the Asiatic charlatan, who was the prince of impostors as Demonax of
philosophers. When quite old, Lucian was appointed by the Emperor
Commodus to a well-paid legal post in Egypt. We also learn, from the
new introductory lectures called _Dionysus_ and _Heracles_, that he
resumed the practice of reading his dialogues; but he wrote nothing
more of importance. It is stated in Suidas that he was torn to pieces
by dogs; but, as other statements in the article are discredited, it is
supposed that this is the Christian revenge for Lucian's imaginary
hostility to Christianity. We have it from himself that he suffered
from gout in his old age. He solaced himself characteristically by
writing a play on the subject; but whether the goddess Gout, who gave
it its name, was appeased by it, or carried him off, we cannot tell.

2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS

The received order in which Lucian's works stand is admitted to be
entirely haphazard. The following arrangement in groups is roughly
chronological, though it is quite possible that they overlap each
other. It is M. Croiset's, put into tabular form. Many details in it
are open to question; but to read in this order would at least be more
satisfactory to any one who wishes to study Lucian seriously than to
take the pieces as they come. The table will also serve as a rough
guide to the first-class and the inferior pieces. The names italicized
are those of pieces rejected as spurious by M. Croiset, and therefore
not placed by him; we have inserted them where they seem to belong; as
to their genuineness, it is our opinion that the objections made (not
by M. Croiset, who does not discuss authenticity) to the _Demosthenes_
and _The Cynic_ at least are, in view of the merits of these,
unconvincing.

(i) About 145 to 160 A.D. Lucian a rhetorician in Ionia, Greece, Italy,
and Gaul.

The Tyrannicide, a rhetorical exercise.

The Disinherited.

Phalaris I & II.

_Demosthenes_, a panegyric.

Patriotism, an essay.

The Fly, an essay.

Swans and Amber, an introductory lecture.

Dipsas, an introductory lecture.

The Hall, an introductory lecture.

Nigrinus, a dialogue on philosophy, 150 A.D.

(ii) About 160 to 164 A.D. After Lucian's return to Asia.

The Portrait-study, a panegyric in dialogue, 162 A.D.

Defence of The Portrait-study, in dialogue.

A Trial in the Court of Vowels, a _jeu d'esprit_.

Hesiod, a short dialogue.

The Vision, an autobiographical address.

(iii) About 165 A.D. At Athens.

Pantomime, art criticism in dialogue.

Anacharsis, a dialogue on physical training.

Toxaris, stories of friendship in dialogue.

Slander, a moral essay.

The Way to write History, an essay in literary criticism.

The next eight groups, iv-xi, belong to the years from about 165 A.D.
to about 175 A.D., when Lucian was at his best and busiest; iv-ix are
to be regarded roughly as succeeding each other in time; x and xi being
independent in this respect. Pieces are assigned to groups mainly
according to their subjects; but some are placed in groups that do not
seem at first sight the most appropriate, owing to specialties in their
treatment; e.g. _The Ship_ might seem more in place with vii than with
ix; but M. Croiset finds in it a maturity that induces him to put it
later.

(iv) About 165 A.D.

Hermotimus, a philosophic dialogue.

The Parasite, a parody of a philosophic dialogue.

(v) Influence of the New Comedy writers.

The Liar, a dialogue satirizing superstition.

A Feast of Lapithae, a dialogue satirizing the manners of philosophers.

Dialogues of the Hetaerae, a series of short dialogues.

(vi) Influence of the Menippean satire.

Dialogues of the Dead, a series of short dialogues.

Dialogues of the Gods, a series of short dialogues.

Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, a series of short dialogues.

Menippus, a dialogue satirizing philosophy.

Icaromenippus, a dialogue satirizing philosophy and religion.

Zeus cross-examined, a dialogue satirizing religion.

_The Cynic_, a dialogue against luxury.

_Of Sacrifice_, an essay satirizing religion.

Saturnalia, dialogue and letters on the relation of rich and poor.

The True History, a parody of the old Greek historians,

(vii) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: vanity of human wishes.

A Voyage to the Lower World, a dialogue on the vanity of power.

Charon, a dialogue on the vanity of all things.

Timon, a dialogue on the vanity of riches.

The Cock, a dialogue on the vanity of riches and power,

(viii) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: dialogues satirizing
religion.

Prometheus on Caucasus.

Zeus Tragoedus.

The Gods in Council.

(ix) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: satire on philosophers.

The Ship, a dialogue on foolish aspirations.

The Life of Peregrine, a narrative satirizing the Cynics, 169 A.D.

The Runaways, a dialogue satirizing the Cynics.

The double Indictment, an autobiographic dialogue.

The Sale of Creeds, a dialogue satirizing philosophers.

The Fisher, an autobiographic dialogue satirizing philosophers.

(x) 165-175 A.D. Introductory lectures.

Herodotus.

Zeuxis.

Harmonides.

The Scythian.

A literary Prometheus.

(xi) 165-175 A.D. Scattered pieces standing apart from the great
dialogue series, but written during the same period.

The Book-fancier, an invective. About 170 A.D.

_The Purist purized_, a literary satire in dialogue.

Lexiphanes, a literary satire in dialogue.

The Rhetorician's Vade-mecum, a personal satire. About 178 A.D.

(xii) After 180 A.D.

Demonax, a biography.

Alexander, a satirical biography,

(xiii) In old age.

Mourning, an essay.

Dionysus, an introductory lecture.

Heracles, an introductory lecture.

Apology for 'The dependent Scholar.'

A Slip of the Tongue.

In conclusion, we have to say that this arrangement of M. Croiset's,
which we have merely tabulated without intentionally departing from it
in any particular, seems to us well considered in its broad lines;
there are a few modifications which we should have been disposed to
make in it; but we thought it better to take it entire than to exercise
our own judgment in a matter where we felt very little confidence.

3. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIME

'M. Aurelius has for us moderns this great superiority in interest over
Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of society
modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own,
in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened
age" just as glibly as _The Times_ talks of it.' M. Arnold, _Essays in
Criticism, M. Aurelius_.

The age of M. Aurelius is also the age of Lucian, and with any man of
that age who has, like these two, left us a still legible message we
can enter into quite different relations from those which are possible
with what M. Arnold calls in the same essay 'classical-dictionary
heroes.' A twentieth-century Englishman, a second-century Greek or
Roman, would be much more at home in each other's century, if they had
the gift of tongues, than in most of those which have intervened. It is
neither necessary nor possible to go deeply into the resemblance here
[Footnote: Some words of Sir Leslie Stephen's may be given, however,
describing the welter of religious opinions that prevailed at both
epochs: 'The analogy between the present age and that which witnessed
the introduction of Christianity is too striking to have been missed by
very many observers. The most superficial acquaintance with the general
facts shows how close a parallel might be drawn by a competent
historian. There are none of the striking manifestations of the present
day to which it would not be easy to produce an analogy, though in some
respects on a smaller scale. Now, as then, we can find mystical
philosophers trying to evolve a satisfactory creed by some process of
logical legerdemain out of theosophical moonshine; and amiable and
intelligent persons labouring hard to prove that the old mythology
could be forced to accept a rationalistic interpretation—whether in
regard to the inspection of entrails or prayers for fine weather; and
philosophers framing systems of morality entirely apart from the
ancient creeds, and sufficiently satisfactory to themselves, while
hopelessly incapable of impressing the popular mind; and politicians,
conscious that the basis of social order was being sapped by the decay
of the faith in which it had arisen, and therefore attempting the
impossible task of galvanizing dead creeds into a semblance of
vitality; and strange superstitions creeping out of their
lurking-places, and gaining influence in a luxurious society whose
intelligence was an ineffectual safeguard against the most grovelling
errors; and a dogged adherence of formalists and conservatives to
ancient ways, and much empty profession of barren orthodoxy; and,
beneath all, a vague disquiet, a breaking up of ancient social and
natural bonds, and a blind groping toward some more cosmopolitan creed
and some deeper satisfaction for the emotional needs of mankind.'—_The
Religion of all Sensible Men_ in _An Agnostic's Apology_, 1893.]; all
that need be done is to pass in review those points of it, some
important, and some trifling, which are sure to occur in a detached way
to readers of Lucian.

The Graeco-Roman world was as settled and peaceful, as conscious of its
imperial responsibilities, as susceptible to boredom, as greedy of
amusement, could show as numerous a leisured class, and believed as
firmly in money, as our own. What is more important for our purpose, it
was questioning the truth of its religion as we are to-day questioning
the truth of ours. Lucian was the most vehement of the questioners. Of
what played the part then that the Christian religion plays now, the
pagan religion was only one half; the other half was philosophy. The
gods of Olympus had long lost their hold upon the educated, but not
perhaps upon the masses; the educated, ill content to be without any
guide through the maze of life, had taken to philosophy instead.
Stoicism was the prevalent creed, and how noble a form this could take
in a cultivated and virtuous mind is to be seen in the _Thoughts_ of M.
Aurelius. The test of a religion, however, is not what form it takes in
a virtuous mind, but what effects it produces on those of another sort.
Lucian applies the test of results alike to the religion usually so
called, and to its philosophic substitute. He finds both wanting; the
test is not a satisfactory one, but it is being applied by all sorts
and conditions of men to Christianity in our own time; so is the second
test, that of inherent probability, which he uses as well as the other
upon the pagan theology; and it is this that gives his writings, even
apart from their wit and fancy, a special interest for our own time.
Our attention seems to be concentrated more and more on the ethical, as
opposed to the speculative or dogmatic aspect of religion; just such
was Lucian's attitude towards philosophy.

Some minor points of similarity may be briefly noted. As we read the
_Anacharsis_, we are reminded of the modern prominence of athletics;
the question of football _versus_ drill is settled for us; light is
thrown upon the question of conscription; we think of our Commissions
on national deterioration, and the schoolmaster's wail over the
athletic _Frankenstein's_ monster which, like _Eucrates_ in _The Liar_,
he has created but cannot control. The 'horsy talk in every street' of
the _Nigrinus_ calls up the London newsboy with his 'All the winners.'
We think of palmists and spiritualists in the police-courts as we read
of Rutilianus and the Roman nobles consulting the impostor Alexander.
This sentence reads like the description of a modern man of science
confronted with the supernatural: 'It was an occasion for a man whose
intelligence was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and
insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would
at any rate have been perfectly certain that, though this escaped him,
the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility.' The upper-class
audiences who listened to Lucian's readings, taking his points with
quiet smiles instead of the loud applause given to the rhetorician,
must have been something like that which listens decorously to an
Extension lecturer. When Lucian bids us mark 'how many there are who
once were but cyphers, but whom words have raised to fame and opulence,
ay, and to noble lineage too,' we remember not only Gibbon's remark
about the very Herodes Atticus of whom Lucian may have been thinking
('The family of Herod, at least after it had been favoured by fortune,
was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades'), but also the modern
_carriere ouverte aux talents_, and the fact that Tennyson was a lord.
There are the elements of a socialist question in the feelings between
rich and poor described in the _Saturnalia_; while, on the other hand,
the fact of there being an audience for the _Dialogues of the Hetaerae_
is an illustration of that spirit of _humani nihil a me alienum puto_
which is again prevalent today. We care now to realize the thoughts of
other classes besides our own; so did they in Lucian's time; but it is
significant that Francklin in 1780, refusing to translate this series,
says: 'These dialogues exhibit to us only such kind of conversation as
we may hear in the purlieus of Covent Garden—lewd, dull, and insipid.'
The lewdness hardly goes beyond the title; they are full of humour and
insight; and we make no apology for translating most of them. Lastly, a
generation that is always complaining of the modern over-production of
books feels that it would be at home in a state of society in which our
author found that, not to be too singular, he must at least write about
writing history, if he declined writing it himself, even as Diogenes
took to rolling his tub, lest he should be the only idle man when
Corinth was bustling about its defences.

As Lucian is so fond of saying, 'this is but a small selection of the
facts which might have been quoted' to illustrate the likeness between
our age and his. It may be well to allude, on the other hand, to a few
peculiarities of the time that appear conspicuously in his writings.

The Roman Empire was rather Graeco-Roman than Roman; this is now a
commonplace. It is interesting to observe that for Lucian 'we' is on
occasion the Romans; 'we' is also everywhere the Greeks; while at the
same time 'I' is a barbarian and a Syrian. Roughly speaking, the Roman
element stands for energy, material progress, authority, and the Greek
for thought; the Roman is the British Philistine, the Greek the man of
culture. Lucian is conscious enough of the distinction, and there is no
doubt where his own preference lies. He may be a materialist, so far as
he is anything, in philosophy; but in practice he puts the things of
the mind before the things of the body.

If our own age supplies parallels for most of what we meet with in the
second century, there are two phenomena which are to be matched rather
in an England that has passed away. The first is the Cynics, who swarm
in Lucian's pages like the begging friars in those of a historical
novelist painting the middle ages. Like the friars, they began nobly in
the desire for plain living and high thinking; in both cases the
thinking became plain, the living not perhaps high, but the best that
circumstances admitted of, and the class—with its numbers hugely
swelled by persons as little like their supposed teachers as a Marian
or Elizabethan persecutor was like the founder of Christianity—a pest
to society. Lucian's sympathy with the best Cynics, and detestation of
the worst, make Cynicism one of his most familiar themes. The second is
the class so vividly presented in _The dependent Scholar_—the indigent
learned Greek who looks about for a rich vulgar Roman to buy his
company, and finds he has the worst of the bargain. His successors, the
'trencher chaplains' who 'from grasshoppers turn bumble-bees and wasps,
plain parasites, and make the Muses mules, to satisfy their
hunger-starved panches, and get a meal's meat,' were commoner in
Burton's days than in our own, and are to be met in Fielding, and
Macaulay, and Thackeray.

Two others of Lucian's favourite figures, the parasite and the
legacy-hunter, exist still, no doubt, as they are sure to in every
complex civilization; but their operations are now conducted with more
regard to the decencies. This is worth remembering when we are
occasionally offended by his frankness on subjects to which we are not
accustomed to allude; he is not an unclean or a sensual writer, but the
waters of decency have risen since his time and submerged some things
which were then visible.

A slight prejudice, again, may sometimes be aroused by Lucian's trick
of constant and trivial quotation; he would rather put the simplest
statement, or even make his transition from one subject to another, in
words of Homer than in his own; we have modern writers too who show the
same tendency, and perhaps we like or dislike them for it in proportion
as their allusions recall memories or merely puzzle us; we cannot all
be expected to have agreeable memories stirred by insignificant Homer
tags; and it is well to bear in mind by way of palliation that in Greek
education Homer played as great a part as the Bible in ours. He might
be taken simply or taken allegorically; but one way or the other he was
the staple of education, and it might be assumed that every one would
like the mere sound of him.

We may end by remarking that the public readings of his own works, to
which the author makes frequent reference, were what served to a great
extent the purpose of our printing-press. We know that his pieces were
also published; but the public that could be reached by hand-written
copies would bear a very small proportion to that which heard them from
the writer's own lips; and though the modern system may have the
advantage on the whole, it is hard to believe that the unapproached
life and naturalness of Lucian's dialogue does not owe something to
this necessity.

4. LUCIAN AS A WRITER

With all the sincerity of Lucian in _The True History_, 'soliciting his
reader's incredulity,' we solicit our reader's neglect of this
appreciation. We have no pretensions whatever to the critical faculty;
the following remarks are to be taken as made with diffidence, and
offered to those only who prefer being told what to like, and why, to
settling the matter for themselves.

Goethe, aged fourteen, with seven languages on hand, devised the plan
of a correspondence kept up by seven imaginary brothers scattered over
the globe, each writing in the language of his adopted land. The
stay-at-home in Frankfort was to write Jew-German, for which purpose
some Hebrew must be acquired. His father sent him to Rector Albrecht.
The rector was always found with one book open before him—a
well-thumbed Lucian. But the Hebrew vowel-points were perplexing, and
the boy found better amusement in putting shrewd questions on what
struck him as impossibilities or inconsistencies in the Old-Testament
narrative they were reading. The old gentleman was infinitely amused,
had fits of mingled coughing and laughter, but made little attempt at
solving his pupil's difficulties, beyond ejaculating _Er narrischer
Kerl! Er narrischer Junge_! He let him dig for solutions, however, in
an English commentary on the shelves, and occupied the time with
turning the familiar pages of his Lucian [Footnote: _Wahrheit und
Dichtung_, book iv. ]. The wicked old rector perhaps chuckled to think
that here was one who bade fair to love Lucian one day as well as he
did himself.

For Lucian too was one who asked questions—spent his life doing little
else; if one were invited to draw him with the least possible
expenditure of ink, one's pen would trace a mark of interrogation. That
picture is easily drawn; to put life into it is a more difficult
matter. However, his is not a complex character, for all the irony in
which he sometimes chooses to clothe his thought; and materials are at
least abundant; he is one of the self-revealing fraternity; his own
personal presence is to be detected more often than not in his work. He
may give us the assistance, or he may not, of labelling a character
_Lucian_ or _Lycinus_; we can detect him, _volentes volentem_, under
the thin disguise of _Menippus_ or _Tychiades_ or _Cyniscus_ as well.
And the essence of him as he reveals himself is the questioning spirit.
He has no respect for authority. Burke describes the majority of
mankind, who do not form their own opinions, as 'those whom Providence
has doomed to live on trust'; Lucian entirely refuses to live on trust;
he 'wants to know.' It was the wish of _Arthur Clennam_, who had in
consequence a very bad name among the _Tite Barnacles_ and other
persons in authority. Lucian has not escaped the same fate; 'the
scoffer Lucian' has become as much a commonplace as '_fidus Achates_,'
or 'the well-greaved Achaeans,' the reading of him has been
discountenanced, and, if he has not actually lost his place at the
table of Immortals, promised him when he temporarily left the Island of
the Blest, it has not been so 'distinguished' a place as it was to have
been and should have been. And all because he 'wanted to know.'

His questions, of course, are not all put in the same manner. In the
_Dialogues of the Gods_, for instance, the mark of interrogation is not
writ large; they have almost the air at first of little stories in
dialogue form, which might serve to instruct schoolboys in the
attributes and legends of the gods—a manual charmingly done, yet a
manual only. But we soon see that he has said to himself: Let us put
the thing into plain natural prose, and see what it looks like with its
glamour of poetry and reverence stripped off; the Gods do human things;
why not represent them as human persons, and see what results? What did
result was that henceforth any one who still believed in the pagan
deities might at the cost of an hour's light reading satisfy himself
that his gods were not gods, or, if they were, had no business to be.
Whether many or few did so read and so satisfy themselves, we have no
means of knowing; it is easy to over-estimate the effect such writing
may have had, and to forget that those who were capable of being
convinced by exposition of this sort would mostly be those who were
already convinced without; still, so far as Lucian had any effect on
the religious position, it must have been in discrediting paganism and
increasing the readiness to accept the new faith beginning to make its
way. Which being so, it was ungrateful of the Christian church to turn
and rend him. It did so, partly in error. Lucian had referred in the
_Life of Peregrine_ to the Christians, in words which might seem
irreverent to Christians at a time when they were no longer an obscure
sect; he had described and ridiculed in _The Liar_ certain 'Syrian'
miracles which have a remarkable likeness to the casting out of spirits
by Christ and the apostles; and worse still, the _Philopatris_ passed
under his name. This dialogue, unlike what Lucian had written in the
_Peregrine_ and _The Liar_, is a deliberate attack on Christianity. It
is clear to us now that it was written two hundred years after his
time, under Julian the Apostate; but there can be no more doubt of its
being an imitation of Lucian than of its not being his; it consequently
passed for his, the story gained currency that he was an apostate
himself, and his name was anathema for the church. It was only partly
in error, however. Though Lucian might be useful on occasion ('When
Tertullian or Lactantius employ their labours in exposing the falsehood
and extravagance of Paganism, they are obliged to transcribe the
eloquence of Cicero or the wit of Lucian' [Footnote: Gibbon, _Decline
and Fall_, cap. xv.]), the very word heretic is enough to remind us
that the Church could not show much favour to one who insisted always
on thinking for himself. His works survived, but he was not read,
through the Middle Ages. With the Renaissance he partly came into his
own again, but still laboured under the imputations of scoffing and
atheism, which confined the reading of him to the few.

The method followed in the _Dialogues of the Gods_ and similar pieces
is a very indirect way of putting questions. It is done much more
directly in others, the _Zeus cross-examined_, for instance. Since the
fallen angels

  reasoned high
  Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate—
  Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute—
  And found no end, in wandering mazes lost,


these subjects have had their share of attention; but the questions can
hardly be put more directly, or more neatly, than in the _Zeus
cross-examined_, and the thirtieth _Dialogue of the Dead_.

He has many other interrogative methods besides these, which may be
left to reveal themselves in the course of reading. As for answering
questions, that is another matter. The answer is sometimes apparent,
sometimes not; he will not refrain from asking a question just because
he does not know the answer; his _role_ is asking, not answering. Nor
when he gives an answer is it always certain whether it is to be taken
in earnest. Was he a cynic? one would say so after reading _The Cynic_;
was he an Epicurean? one would say so after reading the _Alexander_;
was he a philosopher? one would say Yes at a certain point of the
_Hermotimus_, No at another. He doubtless had his moods, and he was
quite unhampered by desire for any consistency except consistent
independence of judgement. Moreover, the difficulty of getting at his
real opinions is increased by the fact that he was an ironist. We have
called him a self-revealer; but you never quite know where to have an
ironical self-revealer. Goethe has the useful phrase, 'direct irony'; a
certain German writer 'makes too free a use of direct irony, praising
the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy—a rhetorical device which
should be very sparingly employed. In the long run it disgusts the
sensible and misleads the dull, pleasing only the great intermediate
class to whom it offers the satisfaction of being able to think
themselves more shrewd than other people, without expending much
thought of their own' (_Wahrheit und Dichtung_, book vii). Fielding
gives us in _Jonathan Wild_ a sustained piece of 'direct irony'; you
have only to reverse everything said, and you get the author's meaning.
Lucian's irony is not of that sort; you cannot tell when you are to
reverse him, only that you will have sometimes to do so. He does use
the direct kind; _The Rhetorician's Vade mecum_ and _The Parasite_ are
examples; the latter is also an example (unless a translator, who is
condemned not to skip or skim, is an unfair judge) of how tiresome it
may become. But who shall say how much of irony and how much of genuine
feeling there is in the fine description of the philosophic State given
in the _Hermotimus_ (with its suggestions of _Christian_ in _The
Pilgrim's Progress_, and of the 'not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble'), or in the whimsical extravagance (as it
strikes a modern) of the _Pantomime_, or in the triumph permitted to
the Cynic (against 'Lycinus' too) in the dialogue called after him? In
one of his own introductory lectures he compares his pieces aptly
enough to the bacchante's thyrsus with its steel point concealed.

With his questions and his irony and his inconsistencies, it is no
wonder that Lucian is accused of being purely negative and destructive.
But we need not think he is disposed of in that way, any more than our
old-fashioned literary education is disposed of when it has been
pointed out that it does not equip its _alumni_ with knowledge of
electricity or of a commercially useful modern language; it may have
equipped them with something less paying, but more worth paying for.
Lucian, it is certain, will supply no one with a religion or a
philosophy; but it may be doubted whether any writer will supply more
fully both example and precept in favour of doing one's thinking for
oneself; and it may be doubted also whether any other intellectual
lesson is more necessary. He is _nullius addictus iurare in verba
magistri_, if ever man was; he is individualist to the core. No
religion or philosophy, he seems to say, will save you; the thing is to
think for yourself, and be a man of sense. 'It was but small
consolation,' says _Menippus_, 'to reflect that I was in numerous and
wise and eminently sensible company, if I was a fool still, all astray
in my quest for truth.' _Vox populi_ is no _vox dei_ for him; he is
quite proof against majorities; _Athanasius contra mundum_ is more to
his taste. "What is this I hear?" asked Arignotus, scowling upon me;
"you deny the existence of the supernatural, when there is scarcely a
man who has not seen some evidence of it?" "Therein lies my
exculpation," I replied; "I do not believe in the supernatural,
because, unlike the rest of mankind, I do not see it; if I saw, I
should doubtless believe, just as you all do."' That British schoolboys
should have been brought up for centuries on Ovid, and Lucian have been
tabooed, is, in view of their comparative efficacy in stimulating
thought, an interesting example of _habent sua fata libelli_.

It need not be denied that there is in him a certain lack of feeling,
not surprising in one of his analytic temper, but not agreeable either.
He is a hard bright intelligence, with no bowels; he applies the knife
without the least compunction—indeed with something of savage
enjoyment. The veil is relentlessly torn from family affection in the
_Mourning_. _Solon_ in the _Charon_ pursues his victory so far as to
make us pity instead of scorning _Croesus_. _Menippus_ and his kind, in
the shades, do their lashing of dead horses with a disagreeable gusto,
which tempts us to raise a society for the prevention of cruelty to the
Damned. A voyage through Lucian in search of pathos will yield as
little result as one in search of interest in nature. There is a touch
of it here and there (which has probably evaporated in translation) in
the _Hermotimus_, the _Demonax_, and the _Demosthenes_; but that is
all. He was perhaps not unconscious of all this himself. 'But what is
your profession?' asks _Philosophy_. 'I profess hatred of imposture and
pretension, lying and pride… However, I do not neglect the
complementary branch, in which love takes the place of hate; it
includes love of truth and beauty and simplicity, and all that is akin
to love. _But the subjects for this branch of the profession are sadly
few_.'

Before going on to his purely literary qualities, we may collect here a
few detached remarks affecting rather his character than his skill as
an artist. And first of his relations to philosophy. The statements in
the _Menippus_ and the _Icaromenippus_, as well as in _The Fisher_ and
_The double Indictment_, have all the air of autobiography (especially
as they are in the nature of digressions), and give us to understand
that he had spent much time and energy on philosophic study. He claims
_Philosophy_ as his mistress in _The Fisher_, and in a case where he is
in fact judge as well as party, has no difficulty in getting his claim
established. He is for ever reminding us that he loves philosophy and
only satirizes the degenerate philosophers of his day. But it _will_
occur to us after reading him through that he has dissembled his love,
then, very well. There is not a passage from beginning to end of his
works that indicates any real comprehension of any philosophic system.
The external characteristics of the philosophers, the absurd stories
current about them, and the popular misrepresentations of their
doctrines—it is in these that philosophy consists for him. That he had
read some of them there is no doubt; but one has an uneasy suspicion
that he read Plato because he liked his humour and his style, and did
not trouble himself about anything further. Gibbon speaks of 'the
philosophic maze of the writings of Plato, of which the dramatic is
perhaps more interesting than the argumentative part.' That is quite a
legitimate opinion, provided you do not undertake to judge philosophy
in the light of it. The apparently serious rejection of geometrical
truth in the _Hermotimus_ may fairly suggest that Lucian was as
unphilosophic as he was unmathematical. Twice, and perhaps twice only,
does he express hearty admiration for a philosopher. Demonax is 'the
best of all philosophers'; but then he admired him just because he was
so little of a philosopher and so much a man of ordinary common sense.
And Epicurus is 'the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and
been in solitary possession of truth'; but then that is in the
_Alexander_, and any stick was good enough to beat that dog with. The
fact is, Lucian was much too well satisfied with his own judgement to
think that he could possibly require guidance, and the commonplace test
of results was enough to assure him that philosophy was worthless: 'It
is no use having all theory at your fingers' ends, if you do not
conform your conduct to the right.' There is a description in the
_Pantomime_ that is perhaps truer than it is meant to pass for.
'Lycinus' is called 'an educated man, and _in some sort_ a student of
philosophy.'

If he is not a philosopher, he is very much a moralist; it is because
philosophy deals partly with morals that he thinks he cares for it. But
here too his conclusions are of a very commonsense order. The Stoic
notion that 'Virtue consists in being uncomfortable' strikes him as
merely absurd; no asceticism for him; on the other hand, no lavish
extravagance and _Persici apparatus_; a dinner of herbs with the
righteous—that is, the cultivated Athenian—, a neat repast of Attic
taste, is honestly his idea of good living; it is probable that he
really did sacrifice both money and fame to live in Athens rather than
in Rome, according to his own ideal. That ideal is a very modest one;
when _Menippus_ took all the trouble to get down to Tiresias in Hades
via Babylon, his reward was the information that 'the life of the
ordinary man is the best and the most prudent choice.' So thought
Lucian; and it is to be counted to him for righteousness that he
decided to abandon 'the odious practices that his profession imposes on
the advocate—deceit, falsehood, bluster, clamour, pushing,' for the
quiet life of a literary man (especially as we should probably never
have heard his name had he done otherwise). Not that the life was so
quiet as it might have been. He could not keep his satire impersonal
enough to avoid incurring enmities. He boasts in the _Peregrine_ of the
unfeeling way in which he commented on that enthusiast to his
followers, and we may believe his assurance that his writings brought
general dislike and danger upon him. His moralizing (of which we are
happy to say there is a great deal) is based on Tiresias's
pronouncement. Moralizing has a bad name; but than good moralizing
there is, when one has reached a certain age perhaps, no better
reading. Some of us like it even in our novels, feel more at home with
Fielding and Thackeray for it, and regretfully confess ourselves
unequal to the artistic aloofness of a Flaubert. Well, Lucian's
moralizings are, for those who like such things, of the right quality;
they are never dull, and the touch is extremely light. We may perhaps
be pardoned for alluding to half a dozen conceptions that have a
specially modern air about them. The use that Rome may serve as a
school of resistance to temptation (_Nigrinus_, 19) recalls Milton's
'fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never
sallies out and seeks her adversary.' 'Old age is wisdom's youth, the
day of her glorious flower' (_Heracles_, 8) might have stood as a text
for Browning's _Rabbi ben Ezra_. The brands visible on the tyrant's
soul, and the refusal of Lethe as a sufficient punishment (_Voyage to
the lower World_, 24 and 28), have their parallels in our new
eschatology. The decision of _Zeus_ that _Heraclitus_ and _Democritus_
are to be one lot that laughter and tears will go together (_Sale of
Creeds_, l3)—accords with our views of the emotional temperament.
_Chiron_ is impressive on the vanity of fruition (_Dialogues of the
Dead_, 26). And the figuring of _Truth_ as 'the shadowy creature with
the indefinite complexion' (_The Fisher_, 16) is only one example of
Lucian's felicity in allegory.

Another weak point, for which many people will have no more inclination
to condemn him than for his moralizing, is his absolute indifference to
the beauties of nature. Having already given him credit for regarding
nothing that is human as beyond his province, it is our duty to record
the corresponding limitation; of everything that was not human he was
simply unconscious; with him it was not so much that the _proper_ as
that the _only_ study of mankind is man. The apparent exceptions are
not real ones. If he is interested in the gods, it is as the creatures
of human folly that he takes them to be. If he writes a toy essay with
much parade of close observation on the fly, it is to show how amusing
human ingenuity can be on an unlikely subject. But it is worth notice
that 'the first of the moderns,' though he shows himself in many
descriptions of pictures quite awake to the beauty manufactured by man,
has in no way anticipated the modern discovery that nature is
beautiful. To readers who have had enough of the pathetic fallacy, and
of the second-rate novelist's local colour, Lucian's tacit assumption
that there is nothing but man is refreshing. That he was a close enough
observer of human nature, any one can satisfy himself by glancing at
the _Feast of Lapithae_, the _Dialogues of the Hetaerae_, some of the
_Dialogues of the Gods_, and perhaps best of all, _The Liar_.

As it occurs to himself to repel the imputation of plagiarism in _A
literary Prometheus_, the point must be briefly touched upon. There is
no doubt that Homer preceded him in making the gods extremely, even
comically, human, that Plato showed him an example of prose dialogue,
that Aristophanes inspired his constructive fancy, that Menippus
provided him with some ideas, how far developed on the same lines we
cannot now tell, that Menander's comedies and Herodas's mimes
contributed to the absolute naturalness of his conversation. If any, or
almost any, of these had never existed, Lucian would have been more or
less different from what he is. His originality is not in the least
affected by that; we may resolve him theoretically into his elements;
but he too had the gift, that out of three sounds he framed, not a
fourth sound, but a star. The question of his originality is no more
important—indeed much less so—than that of Sterne's.

When we pass to purely literary matters, the first thing to be remarked
upon is the linguistic miracle presented to us. It is useless to dwell
upon it in detail, since this is an introduction not to Lucian, but to
a translation of Lucian; it exists, none the less. A Syrian writes in
Greek, and not in the Greek of his own time, but in that of five or six
centuries before, and he does it, if not with absolute correctness, yet
with the easy mastery that we expect only from one in a million of
those who write in their mother tongue, and takes his place as an
immortal classic. The miracle may be repeated; an English-educated
Hindu may produce masterpieces of Elizabethan English that will rank
him with Bacon and Ben Jonson; but it will surprise us, when it does
happen. That Lucian was himself aware of the awful dangers besetting
the writer who would revive an obsolete fashion of speech is shown in
the _Lexiphanes_.

Some faults of style he undoubtedly has, of which a word or two should
perhaps be said. The first is the general taint of rhetoric, which is
sometimes positively intolerable, and is liable to spoil enjoyment even
of the best pieces occasionally. Were it not that 'Rhetoric made a
Greek of me,' we should wish heartily that he had never been a
rhetorician. It is the practice of talking on unreal cases, doubtless
habitual with him up to forty, that must be responsible for the
self-satisfied fluency, the too great length, and the perverse
ingenuity, that sometimes excite our impatience. Naturally, it is in
the pieces of inferior subject or design that this taint is most
perceptible; and it must be forgiven in consideration of the fact that
without the toilsome study of rhetoric he would not have been the
master of Greek that he was.

The second is perhaps only a special case of the first. Julius Pollux,
a sophist whom Lucian is supposed to have attacked in _The
Rhetorician's Vade mecum_, is best known as author of an _Onomasticon_,
or word-list, containing the most important words relating to certain
subjects. One would be reluctant to believe that Lucian condescended to
use his enemy's manual; but it is hard to think that he had not one of
his own, of which he made much too good use. The conviction is
constantly forced on a translator that when Lucian has said a thing
sufficiently once, he has looked at his Onomasticon, found that there
are some words he has not yet got in, and forthwith said the thing
again with some of them, and yet again with the rest.

The third concerns his use of illustrative anecdotes, comparisons, and
phrases. It is true that, if his pieces are taken each separately, he
is most happy with all these (though it is hard to forgive Alexander's
bathe in the Cydnus with which _The Hall_ opens); but when they are
read continuously, the repeated appearances of the tragic actor
disrobed, the dancing apes and their nuts, of Zeus's golden cord, and
of the 'two octaves apart,' produce an impression of poverty that makes
us momentarily forget his real wealth.

We have spoken of the annoying tendency to pleonasm in Lucian's style,
which must be laid at the door of rhetoric. On the other hand let it
have part of the credit for a thing of vastly more importance, his
choice of dialogue as a form when he took to letters. It is quite
obvious that he was naturally a man of detached mind, with an
inclination for looking at both sides of a question. This was no doubt
strengthened by the common practice among professional rhetoricians of
writing speeches on both sides of imaginary cases. The level-headedness
produced by this combination of nature and training naturally led to
the selection of dialogue. In one of the preliminary trials of _The
double Indictment, Drink_, being one of the parties, and consciously
incapable at the moment of doing herself justice, employs her opponent,
_The Academy_, to plead for as well as against her. There are a good
many pieces in which Lucian follows the same method. In _The Hall_ the
legal form is actually kept; in the _Peregrine_ speeches are delivered
by an admirer and a scorner of the hero; in _The Rhetorician's Vade
mecum_ half the piece is an imaginary statement of the writer's enemy;
in the _Apology for 'The dependent Scholar'_ there is a long imaginary
objection set up to be afterwards disposed of; the _Saturnalian
Letters_ are the cases of rich and poor put from opposite sides. None
of these are dialogues; but they are all less perfect devices to secure
the same object, the putting of the two views that the man of detached
mind recognizes on every question. Not that justice is always the
object; these devices, and dialogue still more, offer the further
advantage of economy; no ideas need be wasted, if the subject is
treated from more than one aspect. The choice of dialogue may be
accounted for thus; it is true that it would not have availed much if
the chooser had not possessed the nimble wit and the endless power of
varying the formula which is so astonishing in Lucian; but that it was
a matter of importance is proved at once by comparing the _Alexander_
with _The Liar_, or _The dependent Scholar_ with the _Feast of
Lapithae_. Lucian's non-dialogue pieces (with the exception of _The
True History_) might have been written by other people; the dialogues
are all his own.

About five-and-thirty of his pieces (or sets of pieces) are in
dialogue, and perhaps the greatest proof of his artistic skill is that
the form never palls; so great is the variety of treatment that no one
of them is like another. The point may be worth dwelling on a little.
The main differences between dialogues, apart from the particular
writer's characteristics, are these: the persons may be two only, or
more; they may be well or ill-matched; the proportions and relations
between conversation and narrative vary; and the objects in view are
not always the same. It is natural for a writer to fall into a groove
with some or all of these, and produce an effect of sameness. Lucian,
on the contrary, so rings the changes by permutations and combinations
of them that each dialogue is approached with a delightful uncertainty
of what form it may take. As to number of persons, it is a long step
from the _Menippus_ to the crowded _dramatis personae_ of _The Fisher_
or the _Zeus Tragoedus_, in the latter of which there are two
independent sets, one overhearing and commenting upon the other. It is
not much less, though of another kind, from _The Parasite_, where the
interlocutor is merely a man of straw, to the _Hermotimus_, where he
has life enough to give us ever fresh hopes of a change in fortune, or
to the _Anacharsis_, where we are not quite sure, even when all is
over, which has had the best. Then if we consider conversation and
narrative, there are all kinds. _Nigrinus_ has narrative in a setting
of dialogue, _Demosthenes_ vice versa, _The Liar_ reported dialogue
inside dialogue; _Icaromenippus_ is almost a narrative, while _The
Runaways_ is almost a play. Lastly, the form serves in the _Toxaris_ as
a vehicle for stories, in the _Hermotimus_ for real discussion, in
_Menippus_ as relief for narrative, in the _Portrait-study_ for
description, in _The Cock_ to convey moralizing, in _The double
Indictment_ autobiography, in the _Lexiphanes_ satire, and in the short
series it enshrines prose idylls.

These are considerations of a mechanical order, perhaps; it may be
admitted that technical skill of this sort is only valuable in giving a
proper chance to more essential gifts; but when those exist, it is of
the highest value. And Lucian's versatility in technique is only a
symbol of his versatile powers in general. He is equally at home in
heaven and earth and hell, with philosophers and cobblers, telling a
story, criticizing a book, describing a picture, elaborating an
allegory, personifying an abstraction, parodying a poet or a historian,
flattering an emperor's mistress, putting an audience into good temper
with him and itself, unveiling an imposture, destroying a religion or a
reputation, drawing a character. The last is perhaps the most
disputable of the catalogue. How many of his personages are realities
to us when we have read, and not mere labels for certain modes of
thought or conduct? Well, characterization is not the first, but only
the second thing with him; what is said matters rather more than who
says it; he is more desirous that the argument should advance than that
the person should reveal himself; nevertheless, nothing is ever said
that is out of character; while nothing can be better of the kind than
some of his professed personifications, his _Plutus_ or his
_Philosophy_, we do retain distinct impressions of at least an
irresponsible _Zeus_ and a decorously spiteful _Hera_, a well-meaning,
incapable _Helius_, a bluff _Posidon_, a gallant _Prometheus_, a
one-idea'd _Charon_; _Timon_ is more than misanthropy, _Eucrates_ than
superstition, _Anacharsis_ than intelligent curiosity, _Micyllus_ than
ignorant poverty, poor _Hermotimus_ than blind faith, and Lucian than a
scoffer.



THE WORKS OF LUCIAN



THE VISION

A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY


When my childhood was over, and I had just left school, my father
called a council to decide upon my profession. Most of his friends
considered that the life of culture was very exacting in toil, time,
and money: a life only for fortune's favourites; whereas our resources
were quite narrow, and urgently called for relief. If I were to take up
some ordinary handicraft, I should be making my own living straight
off, instead of eating my father's meat at my age; and before long my
earnings would be a welcome contribution.

So the next step was to select the most satisfactory of the
handicrafts; it must be one quite easy to acquire, respectable,
inexpensive as regards plant, and fairly profitable. Various
suggestions were made, according to the taste and knowledge of the
councillors; but my father turned to my mother's brother, supposed to
be an excellent statuary, and said to him: 'With you here, it would be
a sin to prefer any other craft; take the lad, regard him as your
charge, teach him to handle, match, and grave your marble; he will do
well enough; you know he has the ability.' This he had inferred from
certain tricks I used to play with wax. When I got out of school, I
used to scrape off the wax from my tablets and work it into cows,
horses, or even men and women, and he thought I did it creditably; my
masters used to cane me for it, but on this occasion it was taken as
evidence of a natural faculty, and my modelling gave them good hopes of
my picking up the art quickly.

As soon as it seemed convenient for me to begin, I was handed over to
my uncle, and by no means reluctantly; I thought I should find it
amusing, and be in a position to impress my companions; they should see
me chiselling gods and making little images for myself and my
favourites. The usual first experience of beginners followed: my uncle
gave me a chisel, and told me to give a gentle touch to a plaque lying
on the bench: 'Well begun is half done,' said he, not very originally.
In my inexperience I brought down the tool too hard, and the plaque
broke; he flew into a rage, picked up a stick which lay handy, and gave
me an introduction to art which might have been gentler and more
encouraging; so I paid my footing with tears.

I ran off, and reached home still howling and tearful, told the story
of the stick, and showed my bruises. I said a great deal about his
brutality, and added that it was all envy: he was afraid of my being a
better sculptor than he. My mother was very angry, and abused her
brother roundly; as for me, I fell asleep that night with my eyes still
wet, and sorrow was with me till the morning.

So much of my tale is ridiculous and childish. What you have now to
hear, gentlemen, is not so contemptible, but deserves an attentive
hearing; in the words of Homer,

  To me in slumber wrapt a dream divine
  Ambrosial night conveyed,


a dream so vivid as to be indistinguishable from reality; after all
these years, I have still the figures of its persons in my eyes, the
vibration of their words in my ears; so clear it all was.

Two women had hold of my hands, and were trying vehemently and
persistently to draw me each her way; I was nearly pulled in two with
their contention; now one would prevail and all but get entire
possession of me, now I would fall to the other again, All the time
they were exchanging loud protests: 'He is mine, and I mean to keep
him;' 'Not yours at all, and it is no use your saying he is.' One of
them seemed to be a working woman, masculine looking, with untidy hair,
horny hands, and dress kilted up; she was all powdered with plaster,
like my uncle when he was chipping marble. The other had a beautiful
face, a comely figure, and neat attire. At last they invited me to
decide which of them I would live with; the rough manly one made her
speech first.

'Dear youth, I am Statuary—the art which you yesterday began to learn,
and which has a natural and a family claim upon you. Your grandfather'
(naming my mother's father) 'and both your uncles practised it, and it
brought them credit. If you will turn a deaf ear to this person's
foolish cajolery, and come and live with me, I promise you wholesome
food and good strong muscles; you shall never fear envy, never leave
your country and your people to go wandering abroad, and you shall be
commended not for your words, but for your works.

'Let not a slovenly person or dirty clothes repel you; such were the
conditions of that Phidias who produced the Zeus, of Polyclitus who
created the Hera, of the much-lauded Myron, of the admired Praxiteles;
and all these are worshipped with the Gods. If you should come to be
counted among them, you will surely have fame enough for yourself
through all the world, you will make your father the envy of all
fathers, and bring your country to all men's notice.' This and more
said Statuary, stumbling along in a strange jargon, stringing her
arguments together in a very earnest manner, and quite intent on
persuading me. But I can remember no more; the greater part of it has
faded from my memory. When she stopped, the other's turn came.

'And I, child, am Culture, no stranger to you even now, though you have
yet to make my closer acquaintance. The advantages that the profession
of a sculptor will bring with it you have just been told; they amount
to no more than being a worker with your hands, your whole prospects in
life limited to that; you will be obscure, poorly and illiberally paid,
mean-spirited, of no account outside your doors; your influence will
never help a friend, silence an enemy, nor impress your countrymen; you
will be just a worker, one of the masses, cowering before the
distinguished, truckling to the eloquent, living the life of a hare, a
prey to your betters. You may turn out a Phidias or a Polyclitus, to be
sure, and create a number of wonderful works; but even so, though your
art will be generally commended, no sensible observer will be found to
wish himself like you; whatever your real qualities, you will always
rank as a common craftsman who makes his living with his hands.

'Be governed by me, on the other hand, and your first reward shall be a
view of the many wondrous deeds and doings of the men of old; you shall
hear their words and know them all, what manner of men they were; and
your soul, which is your very self, I will adorn with many fair
adornments, with self-mastery and justice and reverence and mildness,
with consideration and understanding and fortitude, with love of what
is beautiful, and yearning for what is great; these things it is that
are the true and pure ornaments of the soul. Naught shall escape you
either of ancient wisdom or of present avail; nay, the future too, with
me to aid, you shall foresee; in a word, I will instill into you, and
that in no long time, all knowledge human and divine.

'This penniless son of who knows whom, contemplating but now a vocation
so ignoble, shall soon be admired and envied of all, with honour and
praise and the fame of high achievement, respected by the high-born and
the affluent, clothed as I am clothed' (and here she pointed to her own
bright raiment), 'held worthy of place and precedence; and if you leave
your native land, you will be no unknown nameless wanderer; you shall
wear my marks upon you, and every man beholding you shall touch his
neighbour's arm and say, That is he.

'And if some great moment come to try your friends or country, then
shall all look to you. And to your lightest word the many shall listen
open-mouthed, and marvel, and count you happy in your eloquence, and
your father in his son. 'Tis said that some from mortal men become
immortal; and I will make it truth in you; for though you depart from
life yourself, you shall keep touch with the learned and hold communion
with the best. Consider the mighty Demosthenes, whose son he was, and
whither I exalted him; consider Aeschines; how came a Philip to pay
court to the cymbal-woman's brat? how but for my sake? Dame Statuary
here had the breeding of Socrates himself; but no sooner could he
discern the better part, than he deserted her and enlisted with me;
since when, his name is on every tongue.

'You may dismiss all these great men, and with them all glorious deeds,
majestic words, and seemly looks, all honour, repute, praise,
precedence, power, and office, all lauded eloquence and envied wisdom;
these you may put from you, to gird on a filthy apron and assume a
servile guise; then will you handle crowbars and graving tools, mallets
and chisels; you will be bowed over your work, with eyes and thoughts
bent earthwards, abject as abject can be, with never a free and manly
upward look or aspiration; all your care will be to proportion and
fairly drape your works; to proportioning and adorning yourself you
will give little heed enough, making yourself of less account than your
marble.'

I waited not for her to bring her words to an end, but rose up and
spoke my mind; I turned from that clumsy mechanic woman, and went
rejoicing to lady Culture, the more when I thought upon the stick, and
all the blows my yesterday's apprenticeship had brought me. For a time
the deserted one was wroth, with clenched fists and grinding teeth; but
at last she stiffened, like another Niobe, into marble. A strange fate,
but I must request your belief; dreams are great magicians, are they
not?

Then the other looked upon me and spoke:—'For this justice done me,'
said she, 'you shall now be recompensed; come, mount this car'—and lo,
one stood ready, drawn by winged steeds like Pegasus—, 'that you may
learn what fair sights another choice would have cost you.' We mounted,
she took the reins and drove, and I was carried aloft and beheld towns
and nations and peoples from the East to the West; and methought I was
sowing like Triptolemus; but the nature of the seed I cannot call to
mind—only this, that men on earth when they saw it gave praise, and all
whom I reached in my flight sent me on my way with blessings.

When she had presented these things to my eyes, and me to my admirers,
she brought me back, no more clad as when my flight began; I returned,
methought, in glorious raiment. And finding my father where he stood
waiting, she showed him my raiment, and the guise in which I came, and
said a word to him upon the lot which they had come so near appointing
for me. All this I saw when scarce out of my childhood; the confusion
and terror of the stick, it may be, stamped it on my memory.

'Good gracious,' says some one, before I have done, 'what a longwinded
lawyer's vision!' 'This,' interrupts another, 'must be a winter dream,
to judge by the length of night required; or perhaps it took three
nights, like the making of Heracles. What has come over him, that he
babbles such puerilities? memorable things indeed, a child in bed, and
a very ancient, worn-out dream! what stale frigid stuff! does he take
us for interpreters of dreams?' Sir, I do not. When Xenophon related
that vision of his which you all know, of his father's house on fire
and the rest, was it just by way of a riddle? was it in deliberate
ineptitude that he reproduced it? a likely thing in their desperate
military situation, with the enemy surrounding them! no, the relation
was to serve a useful purpose.

Similarly I have had an object in telling you my dream. It is that the
young may be guided to the better way and set themselves to Culture,
especially any among them who is recreant for fear of poverty, and
minded to enter the wrong path, to the ruin of a nature not all
ignoble. Such an one will be strengthened by my tale, I am well
assured; in me he will find an apt example; let him only compare the
boy of those days, who started in pursuit of the best and devoted
himself to Culture regardless of immediate poverty, with the man who
has now come back to you, as high in fame, to put it at the lowest, as
any stonecutter of them all.

H.



A LITERARY PROMETHEUS

So you will have me a Prometheus? If your meaning is, my good sir, that
my works, like his, are of clay, I accept the comparison and hail my
prototype; potter me to your heart's content, though _my_ clay is poor
common stuff, trampled by common feet till it is little better than
mud. But perhaps it is in exaggerated compliment to my ingenuity that
you father my books upon the subtlest of the Titans; in that case I
fear men will find a hidden meaning, and detect an Attic curl on your
laudatory lips. Where do you find my ingenuity? in what consists the
great subtlety, the Prometheanism, of my writings? enough for me if you
have not found them sheer earth, all unworthy of Caucasian clay-pits.
How much better a claim to kinship with Prometheus have you gentlemen
who win fame in the courts, engaged in real contests; _your_ works have
true life and breath, ay, and the warmth of fire. That is Promethean
indeed, though with the difference, it may be, that you do not work in
clay; your creations are oftenest of gold; we on the other hand who
come before popular audiences and offer mere lectures are exhibitors of
imitations only. However, I have the general resemblance to Prometheus,
as I said before—a resemblance which I share with the dollmakers—, that
my modelling is in clay; but then there is no motion, as with him, not
a sign of life; entertainment and pastime is the beginning and the end
of my work. So I must look for light elsewhere; possibly the title is a
sort of _lucus a non lucendo_, applied to me as to Cleon in the comedy:

Full well Prometheus-Cleon plans—the past.


Or again, the Athenians used to call Prometheuses the makers of jars
and stoves and other, clay-workers, with playful reference to the
material, and perhaps to the use of fire in baking the ware. If that is
all your 'Prometheus' means, you have aimed your shaft well enough, and
flavoured your jest with the right Attic tartness; my productions are
as brittle as their pottery; fling a stone, and you may smash them all
to pieces.

But here some one offers me a crumb of comfort: 'That was not the
likeness he found between you and Prometheus; he meant to commend your
innovating originality: at a time when human beings did not exist,
Prometheus conceived and fashioned them; he moulded and elaborated
certain living things into agility and beauty; he was practically their
creator, though Athene assisted by putting breath into the clay and
bringing the models to life.' So says my some one, giving your remark
its politest possible turn. Perhaps he has hit the true meaning; not
that I can rest content, however, with the mere credit of innovation,
and the absence of any original to which my work can be referred; if it
is not good as well as original, I assure you I shall be ashamed of it,
bring down my foot and crush it out of existence; its novelty shall not
avail (with me at least) to save its ugliness from annihilation. If I
thought otherwise, I admit that a round dozen of vultures would be none
too many for the liver of a dunce who could not see that ugliness was
only aggravated by strangeness.

Ptolemy, son of Lagus, imported two novelties into Egypt; one was a
pure black Bactrian camel, the other a piebald man, half absolutely
black and half unusually white, the two colours evenly distributed; he
invited the Egyptians to the theatre, and concluded a varied show with
these two, expecting to bring down the house. The audience, however,
was terrified by the camel and almost stampeded; still, it _was_ decked
all over with gold, had purple housings and a richly jewelled bridle,
the spoil of Darius' or Cambyses' treasury, if not of Cyrus' own. As
for the man, a few laughed at him, but most shrank as from a monster.
Ptolemy realized that the show was a failure, and the Egyptians proof
against mere novelty, preferring harmony and beauty. So he withdrew and
ceased to prize them; the camel died forgotten, and the parti-coloured
man became the reward of Thespis the fluteplayer for a successful
after-dinner performance.

I am afraid my work is a camel in Egypt, and men's admiration limited
to the bridle and purple housings; as to combinations, though the
components may be of the most beautiful (as Comedy and Dialogue in the
present case), that will not ensure a good effect, unless the mixture
is harmonious and well-proportioned; it is possible that the resultant
of two beauties may be bizarre. The readiest instance to hand is the
centaur: not a lovely creature, you will admit, but a savage, if the
paintings of its drunken bouts and murders go for anything. Well, but
on the other hand is it not possible for two such components to result
in beauty, as the combination of wine and honey in superlative
sweetness? That is my belief; but I am not prepared to maintain that
_my_ components have that property; I fear the mixture may only have
obscured their separate beauties.

For one thing, there was no great original connexion or friendship
between Dialogue and Comedy; the former was a stay-at-home, spending
his time in solitude, or at most taking a stroll with a few intimates;
whereas Comedy put herself in the hands of Dionysus, haunted the
theatre, frolicked in company, laughed and mocked and tripped it to the
flute when she saw good; nay, she would mount her anapaests, as likely
as not, and pelt the friends of Dialogue with nicknames—doctrinaires,
airy metaphysicians, and the like. The thing she loved of all else was
to chaff them and drench them in holiday impertinence, exhibit them
treading on air and arguing with the clouds, or measuring the jump of a
flea, as a type of their ethereal refinements. But Dialogue continued
his deep speculations upon Nature and Virtue, till, as the musicians
say, the interval between them was two full octaves, from the highest
to the lowest note. This ill-assorted pair it is that we have dared to
unite and harmonize—reluctant and ill-disposed for reconciliation.

And here comes in the apprehension of yet another Promethean analogy:
have I confounded male and female, and incurred the penalty? Or no—when
will resemblances end?—have I, rather, cheated my hearers by serving
them up bones wrapped in fat, comic laughter in philosophic solemnity?
As for stealing—for Prometheus is the thief's patron too—I defy you
there; that is the one fault you cannot find with me: from whom should
I have stolen? if any one has dealt before me in such forced unions and
hybrids, I have never made his acquaintance. But after all, what am I
to do? I have made my bed, and I must lie in it; Epimetheus may change
his mind, but Prometheus, never.

H.



NIGRINUS

[Lucian to Nigrinus. Health.

There is a proverb about carrying 'owls to Athens'—an absurd
undertaking, considering the excellent supply already on the spot. Had
it been my intention, in presenting Nigrinus with a volume of my
composition, to indulge him of all people with a display of literary
skill, I should indeed have been an arrant 'owl-fancier in Athens.' As
however my object is merely to communicate to you my present
sentiments, and the profound impression produced upon me by your
eloquence, I may fairly plead Not Guilty, even to the charge of
Thucydides, that 'Men are bold from ignorance, where mature
consideration would render them cautious.' For I need not say that
devotion to my subject is partly responsible for my present hardihood;
it is not _all_ the work of ignorance. Farewell.]

NIGRINUS

A DIALOGUE


_Lucian. A Friend_

_Fr_. What a haughty and dignified Lucian returns to us from his
journey! He will not vouchsafe us a glance; he stands aloof, and will
hold no further communion with us. Altogether a supercilious Lucian!
The change is sudden. Might one inquire the cause of this altered
demeanour?

_Luc_. 'Tis the work of Fortune.

_Fr_. Of Fortune!

_Luc_. As an incidental result of my journey, you see in me a happy
man; 'thrice-blest,' as the tragedians have it.

_Fr_. Dear me. What, in this short time?

_Luc_. Even so.

_Fr_. But what does it all mean? What is the secret of your elation? I
decline to rejoice with you in this abridged fashion; I must have
details. Tell me all about it.

_Luc_. What should you think, if I told you that I had exchanged
servitude for freedom; poverty for true wealth; folly and presumption
for good sense?

_Fr_. Extraordinary! But I am not quite clear of your meaning yet.

_Luc_. Why, I went off to Rome to see an oculist—my eyes had been
getting worse—

_Fr_. Yes, I know about that. I have been hoping that you would light
on a good man.

_Luc_. Well, I got up early one morning with the intention of paying a
long-deferred visit to Nigrinus, the Platonic philosopher. On reaching
his house, I knocked, and was duly announced and admitted to his
presence. I found him with a book in his hand, surrounded by various
statues of the ancient philosophers. Before him lay a tablet, with
geometrical figures described on it, and a globe of reeds, designed
apparently to represent the universe. He greeted me cordially, and
asked after my welfare. I satisfied his inquiries, and demanded, in my
turn, how he did, and whether he had decided on another trip to Greece.
Once on that subject, he gave free expression to his sentiments; and, I
assure you, 'twas a veritable feast of ambrosia to me. The spells of
the Sirens (if ever there were Sirens), of the Pindaric 'Charmers,' of
the Homeric lotus, are things to be forgotten, after his truly divine
eloquence. Led on by his theme, he spoke the praises of philosophy, and
of the freedom which philosophy confers; and expressed his contempt for
the vulgar error which sets a value upon wealth and renown and dominion
and power, upon gold and purple, and all that dazzles the eyes of the
world,—and once attracted my own! I listened with rapt attention, and
with a swelling heart. At the time, I knew not what had come over me;
my feelings were indescribable. My dearest idols, riches and renown,
lay shattered; one moment I was ready to shed bitter tears over the
disillusionment, the next, I could have laughed for scorn of these very
things, and was exulting in my escape from the murky atmosphere of my
past life into the brightness of the upper air. The result was curious:
I forgot all about my ophthalmic troubles, in the gradual improvement
of my spiritual vision; for till that day I had grovelled in spiritual
blindness. Little by little I came into the condition with which you
were twitting me just now. Nigrinus's words have raised in me a joyous
exaltation of spirit which precludes every meaner thought. Philosophy
seems to have produced the same effect on me as wine is said to have
produced on the Indians the first time they drank it. The mere taste of
such potent liquor threw them into a state of absolute frenzy, the
intoxicating power of the wine being doubled in men so warm-blooded by
nature. This is my case. I go about like one possessed; I am drunk with
the words of wisdom.

_Fr_. This is not drunkenness, but sobriety and temperance. But I
should like to hear what Nigrinus actually said, if that may be. It is
only right that you should take that trouble for me; I am your friend,
and share your interests.

_Luc_. Enough! You urge a willing steed. I was about to bespeak your
attention. You must be my witness to the world, that there is reason in
my madness. Indeed, apart from this, the work of recollection is a
pleasure, and has become a constant practice with me; twice, thrice in
a day I repeat over his words, though there is none to hear. A lover,
in the absence of his mistress, remembers some word, some act of hers,
dwells on it, and beguiles hours of sickness with her feigned presence.
Sometimes he thinks he is face to face with her; words, heard long
since, come again from her lips; he rejoices; his soul cleaves to the
memory of the past, and has no time for present vexations. It is so
with me. Philosophy is far away, but I have heard a philosopher's
words. I piece them together, and revolve them in my heart, and am
comforted. Nigrinus is the beacon-fire on which, far out in mid-ocean,
in the darkness of night, I fix my gaze; I fancy him present with me in
all my doings; I hear ever the same words. At times, in moments of
concentration, I see his very face, his voice rings in my ears. Of him
it may truly be said, as of Pericles,

In every heart he left his sting.


_Fr_. Stay, gentle enthusiast. Take a good breath, and start again; I
am waiting to hear what Nigrinus said. You beat about the bush in a
manner truly exasperating.

_Luc_. True, I must make a start, as you say. And yet… Tell me, did you
never see a tragedy (nay, the comedies fare no better) murdered by bad
acting, and the culprits finally hissed off the stage for their pains?
As often as not the play is a perfectly good one, and has scored a
success.

_Fr_. I know the sort of thing; and what about it?

_Luc_. I am afraid that before I have done you will find that I make as
sad work of it as they do,—jumbling things together pell-mell, spoiling
the whole point sometimes by inadequate expression; and you will end by
damning the play instead of the actor. I could put up with my own share
of the disgrace; but it would vex me indeed, that my subject should be
involved in my downfall; I cannot have _it_ discredited for my
shortcomings. Remember, then: whatever the imperfections in my speech,
the author is not to be called to account; he sits far aloof from the
stage, and knows nothing of what is going forward. The memory of the
actor is all that you are invited to criticize; I am neither more nor
less than the 'Messenger' in a tragedy. At each flaw in the argument,
be this your first thought, that the author probably said something
quite different, and much more to the point;—and then you may hiss me
off if you will.

_Fr_. Bless me; here is quite a professional exordium! You are about to
add, I think, that 'your consultation with your client has been but
brief'; that you 'come into court imperfectly instructed'; that 'it
were to be desired that your client were here to plead his own cause;
as it is, you are reduced to such a meagre and inadequate statement of
the case, as memory will supply.' Am I right? Well then, spare yourself
the trouble, as far as I am concerned. Imagine all these preliminaries
settled. I stand prepared to applaud: but if you keep me waiting, I
shall harbour resentment all through the case, and hiss you
accordingly.

_Luc_. I should, indeed, have been glad to avail myself of the
arguments you mention, and of others too. I might have said, that mine
would be no set speech, no orderly statement such as that I heard; that
is wholly beyond me. Nor can I speak in the person of Nigrinus. There
again I should be like a bad actor, taking the part of Agamemnon, or
Creon, or Heracles' self; he is arrayed in cloth of gold, and looks
very formidable, and his mouth opens tremendously wide; and what comes
out of it? A little, shrill, womanish pipe of a voice that would
disgrace Polyxena or Hecuba! I for my part have no intention of
exposing myself in a mask several sizes too large for me, or of wearing
a robe to which I cannot do credit. Rather than play the hero's part,
and involve him in my discomfiture, I will speak in my own person.

_Fr_. Will the man never have done with his masks and his stages?

_Luc_. Nay, that is all. And now to my subject. Nigrinus's first words
were in praise of Greece, and in particular of the Athenians. They are
brought up, he said, to poverty and to philosophy. The endeavours,
whether of foreigners or of their own countrymen, to introduce luxury
into their midst, find no favour with them. When a man comes among them
with this view, they quietly set about to correct his tendency, and by
gentle degrees to bring him to a better course of life. He mentioned
the case of a wealthy man who arrived at Athens in all the vulgar pomp
of retinue and gold and gorgeous raiment, expecting that every eye
would be turned upon him in envy of his lot; instead of which, they
heartily pitied the poor worm, and proceeded to take his education in
hand. Not an ill-natured word, not an attempt at direct interference:
it was a free city; he was at liberty to live in it as he thought fit.
But when he made a public nuisance of himself in the baths or
gymnasiums, crowding in with his attendants, and taking up all the
room, someone would whisper, in a sly aside, as if the words were not
meant to reach his ears: 'He is afraid he will never come out from here
alive; yet all is peace; there is no need of such an army.' The remark
would be overheard, and would have its educational effect. They soon
eased him of his embroidery and purple, by playful allusions to flower
and colour. 'Spring is early.'—'How did that peacock get here?'—'His
mother must have lent him that shawl,'—and so on. The same with the
rest, his rings, his elaborate coiffure, and his table excesses. Little
by little he came to his senses, and left Athens very much the better
for the public education he had received.

Nor do they scruple to confess their poverty. He mentioned a sentence
which he heard pronounced unanimously by the assembled people at the
Panathenaic festival. A citizen had been arrested and brought before
the Steward for making his appearance in coloured clothes. The
onlookers felt for him, and took his part; and when the herald declared
that he had violated the law by attending the festival in that attire,
they all exclaimed with one voice, as if they had been in consultation,
'that he must be pardoned for wearing those clothes, as he had no
others.'

He further commended the Athenian liberty, and unpretentious style of
living; the peace and learned leisure which they so abundantly enjoy.
To dwell among such men, he declared, is to dwell with philosophy; a
single-hearted man, who has been taught to despise wealth, may here
preserve a pure morality; no life could be more in harmony with the
determined pursuit of all that is truly beautiful. But the man over
whom gold has cast its spell, who is in love with riches, and measures
happiness by purple raiment and dominion, who, living his life among
flatterers and slaves, knows not the sweets of freedom, the blessings
of candour, the beauty of truth; he who has given up his soul to
Pleasure, and will serve no other mistress, whose heart is set on
gluttony and wine and women, on whose tongue are deceit and hypocrisy;
he again whose ears must be tickled with lascivious songs, and the
voluptuous notes of flute and lyre;—let all such (he cried) dwell here
in Rome; the life will suit them. Our streets and market-places are
filled with the things they love best. They may take in pleasure
through every aperture, through eye and ear, nostril and palate; nor
are the claims of Aphrodite forgotten. The turbid stream surges
everlastingly through our streets; avarice, perjury, adultery,—all
tastes are represented. Under that rush of waters, modesty, virtue,
uprightness, are torn from the soul; and in their stead grows the tree
of perpetual thirst, whose flowers are many strange desires.

Such was Rome; such were the blessings she taught men to enjoy. 'As for
me,' he continued, 'on returning from my first voyage to Greece, I
stopped short a little way from the city, and called myself to account,
in the words of Homer, for my return.

Ah, wretch! and leav'st thou then the light of day—the joyous freedom
of Greece,
And wouldst behold—


the turmoil of Rome? slander and insolence and gluttony, flatterers and
false friends, legacy-hunters and murderers? And what wilt thou do
here? thou canst not endure these things, neither canst thou escape
them! Thus reasoning, I withdrew myself out of range, as Zeus did
Hector,

Far from the scene of slaughter, blood and strife,


and resolved henceforth to keep my house. I lead the life you see—a
spiritless, womanish life, most men would account it—holding converse
with Philosophy, with Plato, with Truth. From my high seat in this vast
theatre, I look down on the scene beneath me; a scene calculated to
afford much entertainment; calculated also to try a man's resolution to
the utmost. For, to give evil its due, believe me, there is no better
school for virtue, no truer test of moral strength, than life in this
same city of Rome. It is no easy thing, to withstand so many
temptations, so many allurements and distractions of sight and sound.
There is no help for it: like Odysseus, we must sail past them all; and
there must be no binding of hands, no stopping of our ears with wax;
that would be but sorry courage: our ears must hear, our hands must be
free,—and our contempt must be genuine. Well may that man conceive an
admiration of philosophy, who is a spectator of so much folly; well may
he despise the gifts of Fortune, who views this stage, and its
multitudinous actors. The slave grows to be master, the rich man is
poor, the pauper becomes a prince, a king; and one is His Majesty's
friend, and another is his enemy, and a third he banishes. And here is
the strangest thing of all: the affairs of mankind are confessedly the
playthings of Fortune, they have no pretence to security; yet, with
instances of this daily before their eyes, men will reach after wealth
and power;—not one of them but carries his load of hopes unrealized.

'But I said that there was entertainment also to be derived from the
scene; and I will maintain it. Our rich men are an entertainment in
themselves, with their purple and their rings always in evidence, and
their thousand vulgarities. The latest development is the _salutation
by proxy_; [Footnote: The _spoken_ salutation being performed by a
servant.] they favour us with a glance, and that must be happiness
enough. By the more ambitious spirits, an obeisance is expected; this
is not performed at a distance, after the Persian fashion—you go right
up, and make a profound bow, testifying with the angle of your body to
the self-abasement of your soul; you then kiss his hand or breast—and
happy and enviable is he who may do so much! And there stands the great
man, protracting the illusion as long as may be. (I heartily acquiesce,
by the way, in the churlish sentence which excludes us from a nearer
acquaintance with their _lips_.)

'But if these men are amusing, their courtiers and flatterers are
doubly so. They rise in the small hours of the night, to go their round
of the city, to have doors slammed in their faces by slaves, to swallow
as best they may the compliments of "Dog," "Toadeater," and the like.
And the guerdon of their painful circumambulations? A vulgarly
magnificent dinner, the source of many woes! They eat too much, they
drink more than they want, they talk more than they should; and then
they go away, angry and disappointed, grumbling at their fare, and
protesting against the scant courtesy shown them by their insolent
patron. You may see them vomiting in every alley, squabbling at every
brothel. The daylight most of them spend in bed, furnishing employment
for the doctors. Most of them, I say; for with some it has come to
this, that they actually have no time to be ill. My own opinion is
that, of the two parties, the toadies are more to blame, and have only
themselves to thank for their patron's insolence. What can they expect
him to think, after their commendations of his wealth, their panegyrics
on money, their early attendance at his doors, their servile
salutations? If by common consent they would abstain, were it only for
a few days, from this voluntary servitude, the tables must surely be
turned, and the rich come to the doors of the paupers, imploring them
not to leave such blessedness as theirs without a witness, their fine
houses and elegant furniture lying idle for want of some one to use
them. Not wealth, but the envy that waits on wealth, is the object of
their desire. The truth is, gold and ivory and noble mansions are of
little avail to their owner, if there is no one to admire them. If we
would break the power of the rich, and bring down their pretensions, we
must raise up within their borders a stronghold of Indifference. As it
is, their vanity is fostered by the court that is paid to them. In
ordinary men, who have no pretence to education, this conduct, no
doubt, is less to be blamed. But that men who call themselves
philosophers should actually outdo the rest in degradation,—this,
indeed, is the climax. Imagine my feelings, when I see a brother
philosopher, an old man, perhaps, mingling in the herd of sycophants;
dancing attendance on some great man; adapting himself to the
conversational level of a possible host! One thing, indeed, serves to
distinguish him from his company, and to accentuate his disgrace;—he
wears the garb of philosophy. It is much to be regretted that actors of
uniform excellence in other respects will not dress conformably to
their part. For in the achievements of the table, what toadeater
besides can be compared with them? There is an artlessness in their
manner of stuffing themselves, a frankness in their tippling, which
defy competition; they sponge with more spirit than other men, and sit
on with greater persistency. It is not an uncommon thing for the more
courtly sages to oblige the company with a song.'

All this he treated as a jest. But he had much to say on the subject of
those paid philosophers, who hawk about virtue like any other
marketable commodity. 'Hucksters' and 'petty traders' were his words
for them. A man who proposes to teach the contempt of wealth, should
begin (he maintained) by showing a soul above fees. And certainly he
has always acted on this principle himself. He is not content with
giving his services gratis to all comers, but lends a helping hand to
all who are in difficulties, and shows an absolute disregard for
riches. So far is he from grasping at other men's goods, that he could
anticipate without concern the deterioration of his own property. He
possessed an estate at no great distance from the city, on which for
many years he had never even set foot. Nay, he disclaimed all right of
property in it; meaning, I suppose, that we have no natural claim to
such things; law, and the rights of inheritance, give us the use of
them for an indefinite period, and for that time we are styled
'owners'; presently our term lapses, and another succeeds to the
enjoyment of a name.

There are other points in which he sets an admirable example to the
serious followers of philosophy: his frugal life, his systematic habits
of bodily exercise, his modest bearing, his simplicity of dress, but
above all, gentle manners and a constant mind. He urges his followers
not to postpone the pursuit of good, as so many do, who allow
themselves a period of grace till the next great festival, after which
they propose to eschew deceit and lead a righteous life; there must be
no shilly-shallying, when virtue is the goal for which we start. On the
other hand, there are philosophers whose idea of inculcating virtue in
their youthful disciples is to subject them to various tests of
physical endurance; whose favourite prescription is the strait
waistcoat, varied with flagellations, or the enlightened process of
scarification. Of these Nigrinus evidently had no opinion. According to
him, our first care should be to inure the _soul_ to pain and hardship;
he who aspired to educate men aright must reckon with soul as well as
body, with the age of his pupils, and with their previous training; he
would then escape the palpable blunder of overtasking them. Many a one
(he affirmed) had succumbed under the unreasonable strain put upon him;
and I met with an instance myself, of a man who had tasted the
hardships of those schools, but no sooner heard the words of true
wisdom, than he fled incontinently to Nigrinus, and was manifestly the
better for the change.

Leaving the philosophers to themselves, he reverted to more general
subjects: the din and bustle of the city, the theatres, the
race-course, the statues of charioteers, the nomenclature of horses,
the horse-talk in every side-street. The rage for horses has become a
positive epidemic; many persons are infected with it whom one would
have credited with more sense.

Then the scene changed to the pomp and circumstance attendant upon
funerals and testamentary dispositions. 'Only once in his life' (he
observed) 'does your thoroughbred Roman say what he means; and then,'
meaning, in his will, 'it comes too late for him to enjoy the credit of
it.' I could not help laughing when he told me how they thought it
necessary to carry their follies with them to the grave, and to leave
the record of their inanity behind them in black and white; some
stipulating that their clothes or other treasures should be burnt with
them, others that their graves should be watched by particular
servants, or their monuments crowned with flowers;—sapient end to a
life of sapience! 'Of their doings in this world,' said he, 'you may
form some idea from their injunctions with reference to the next. These
are they who will pay a long price for an entree; whose floors are
sprinkled with wine and saffron and spices; who in midwinter smother
themselves in roses, ay, for roses are scarce, and out of season, and
altogether desirable; but let a thing come in its due course, and oh,
'tis vile, 'tis contemptible. These are they whose drink is of costly
essences.' He had no mercy on them here. 'Very bunglers in sensuality,
who know not her laws, and confound her ordinances, flinging down their
souls to be trampled beneath the heels of luxury! As the play has it,
Door or window, all is one to them. Such pleasures are rank solecism.'
One observation of his in the same spirit fairly caps the famous
censure of Momus. Momus found fault with the divine artificer for not
putting his bull's horns in front of the eyes. Similarly, Nigrinus
complained that when these men crown themselves in their banquets, they
put the garlands in the wrong place; if they are so fond of the smell
of violets and roses, they should tie on their garlands as close as may
be under their nostrils; they could then snuff up the smell to their
hearts' content.

Proceeding to the gentlemen who make such a serious work of their
dinner, he was exceedingly merry over their painful elaborations of
sauce and seasoning. 'Here again,' he cried, 'these men are sore put to
it, to procure the most fleeting of enjoyments. Grant them four inches
of palate apiece—'tis the utmost we can allow any man—and I will prove
to you that they have four inches of gratification for their trouble.
Thus: there is no satisfaction to be got out of the costliest viands
before consumption; and after it a full stomach is none the better for
the price it has cost to fill it. _Ergo_, the money is paid for the
pleasure snatched _in transitu_. But what are we to expect? These men
are too grossly ignorant to discern those truer pleasures with which
Philosophy rewards our resolute endeavours.'

The Baths proved a fertile topic, what with the insolence of the
masters and the jostlings of their men;—'they will not stand without
the support of a slave; it is much that they retain enough vitality to
get away on their own legs at all.' One practice which obtains in the
streets and Baths of Rome seemed to arouse his particular resentment.
Slaves have to walk on ahead of their masters, and call out to them to
'look to their feet,' whenever there is a hole or a lump in their way;
it has come to this, that men must be _reminded that they are walking_.
'It is too much,' he cried; 'these men can get through their dinner
with the help of their own teeth and fingers; they can hear with their
own ears: yet they must have other men's eyes to see for them! They are
in possession of all their faculties: yet they are content to be spoken
to in language which should only be addressed to poor maimed wretches!
And this goes on in broad daylight, in our public places; and among the
sufferers are men who are responsible for the welfare of cities!'

This he said, and much more to the same effect. At length he was
silent. All the time I had listened in awestruck attention, dreading
the moment when he should cease. And when it was all over, my condition
was like that of the Phaeacians. For a long time I gazed upon him,
spellbound; then I was seized with a violent attack of giddiness; I was
bathed in perspiration, and when I attempted to speak, I broke down; my
voice failed, my tongue stammered, and at last I was reduced to tears.
Mine was no surface wound from a random shaft. The words had sunk deep
into a vital part; had come with true aim, and cleft my soul asunder.
For (if I may venture to philosophize on my own account) I conceive the
case thus:-A well-conditioned human soul is like a target of some soft
material. As life goes on, many archers take aim thereat; and every
man's quiver is full of subtle and varied arguments, but not every man
shoots aright. Some draw the bow too tight, and let fly with undue
violence. These hit the true direction, but their shafts do not lodge
in the mark; their impetus carries them right through the soul, and
they pass on their way, leaving only a gaping wound behind them. Others
make the contrary mistake: their bows are too slack, and their shafts
never reach their destination; as often as not their force is spent at
half distance, and they drop to earth. Or if they reach the mark, they
do but graze its surface; there can be no deep wound, where the archer
lacks strength. But a good marksman, a Nigrinus, begins with a careful
examination of the mark, in case it should be particularly soft,—or
again too hard; for there are marks which will take no impression from
an arrow. Satisfied on this point, he dips his shaft, not in the
poisons of Scythia or Crete, but in a certain ointment of his own,
which is sweet in flavour and gentle in operation; then, without more
ado, he lets fly. The shaft speeds with well-judged swiftness, cleaves
the mark right through, and remains lodged in it; and the drug works
its way through every part. Thus it is that men hear his words with
mingled joy and grief; and this was my own case, while the drug was
gently diffusing itself through my soul. Hence I was moved to
apostrophize him in the words of Homer:

So aim; and thou shalt bring (to some) salvation.


For as it is not every man that is maddened by the sound of the
Phrygian flute, but only those who are inspired of Cybele, and by those
strains are recalled to their frenzy,—so too not every man who hears
the words of the philosophers will go away possessed, and stricken at
heart, but only those in whose nature is something akin to philosophy.

_Fr_. These are fearful and wonderful words; nay, they are divine. All
that you said of ambrosia and lotus is true; I little knew how
sumptuous had been your feast. I have listened to you with strange
emotion, and now that you have ceased, I feel oppressed, nay, in your
own language, 'sore stricken.' This need not surprise you. A person who
has been bitten by a mad dog not only goes mad himself, you know, but
communicates his madness to any one whom he bites whilst he is in that
state, so that the infection may be carried on by this means through a
long succession of persons.

_Luc_. Ah, then you confess to a tenderness?

_Fr_. I do; and beg that you will think upon some medicine for both our
wounded breasts.

_Luc_. We must take a hint from Telephus.

_Fr_. What is that?

_Luc_. We want a hair of the dog that bit us.

F.



TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS

Archon, Aristarchus of Phalerum.
Seventh Pyanepsion.
Court of the Seven Vowels.
Action for assault with robbery.
Sigma _v_. Tau.
Plaintiff's case—that the words in-ττ-are wrongfully withheld from him.


Vowels of the jury.—For some time this Mr. Tau's trespasses and
encroachments on my property were of minor importance; I made no claim
for damages, and affected unconsciousness of what I heard; my
conciliatory temper both you and the other letters have reason to know.
His covetousness and folly, however, have now so puffed him up, that he
is no longer content with my habitual concessions, but insists on more;
I accordingly find myself compelled to get the matter settled by you
who know both sides of it. The fact is, I am in bodily fear, owing to
the crushing to which I am subjected. This evergrowing aggression will
end by ousting me completely from my own; I shall be almost dumb, lose
my rank as a letter, and be degraded to a mere noise.

Justice requires then that not merely you, the jury in this case, but
the other letters also, should be on your guard against such attempts.
If any one who chooses is to be licensed to leave his own place and
usurp that of others, with no objection on your part (whose concurrence
is an indispensable condition of all writing), I fail to see how
combinations are to have their ancient constitutional rights secured to
them. But my first reliance is upon you, who will surely never be
guilty of the negligence and indifference which permits injustice; and
even if you decline the contest, I have no intention of sitting down
under that injustice myself.

It is much to be regretted that the assaults of other letters were not
repelled when they first began their lawless practices; then we should
not be watching the still pending dispute between Lambda and Rho for
possession of κιφαλαλγία or κιφαλαργία, κίσηλις or κίσηρις: Gamma would
not have had to defend its rights over γυάφαλλα, constantly almost at
blows with Kappa in the debatable land, and _per contra_ it would
itself have dropped its campaign against Lambda (if indeed it is more
dignified than petty larceny) for converting μόλις to μόγις: in fact
lawless confusion generally would have been nipped in the bud. And it
is well to abide by the established order; such trespasses betray a
revolutionary spirit.

Now our first legislators—Cadmus the islander, Palamedes, son of
Nauplius, or Simonides, whom some authorities credit with the
measure—were not satisfied with determining merely our order of
precedence in the alphabet; they also had an eye to our individual
qualities and faculties. You, Vowels of the jury, constitute the first
Estate, because you can be uttered independently; the semi-vowels,
requiring support before they can be distinctly heard, are the second;
and the lowest Estate they declared to consist of those nine which
cannot be sounded at all by themselves. The vowels are accordingly the
natural guardians of our laws.

But this—this Tau—I would give him a worse designation, but that is a
manifest impossibility; for without the assistance of two good
presentable members of your Estate, Alpha and Upsilon, he would be a
mere nonentity—he it is that has dared to outdo all injuries that I
have ever known, expelling me from the nouns and verbs of my
inheritance, and hunting me out of my conjunctions and prepositions,
till his rapacity has become quite unbearable. I am now to trace
proceedings from the beginning.

I was once staying at Cybelus, a pleasant little town, said to be an
Athenian colony; my travelling companion was the excellent Rho, best of
neighbours. My host was a writer of comedies, called Lysimachus; he
seems to have been a Boeotian by descent, though he represented himself
as coming from the interior of Attica. It was while with him that I
first detected Tau's depredations*. For some earlier occasional
attempts (as when he took to τετταράκοντα for τεσσαράκοντα, τήμερον for
σήμερον, with little pilferings of that sort) I had explained as a
trick and peculiarity of pronunciation; I had tolerated the sound
without letting it annoy me seriously.

[*Footnote: For the probably corrupt passage § 7 fin.—§ 8 init. I
accept Dindorf’s rearrangement as follows: mechr men gar oligois
epecheirei, tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de taemeron kai ta homoia
epispomenon, sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti legein, kai oiston aen moi
to akousma kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep autois. 8. hupote d ek touton
arxamenon etolmaese kattiteron eipein kai kattuma kai pittan, eita
aperuthriasan kai basilitgan onomazein, aposteroun me ton
suggegenaemenun moi kai suntethrammenun grammatun, ou metrius ipi
toutois aganaktu.]


But impunity emboldened him; kassiteros became kattiteros, kassuma and
pissa shared its fate; and then he cast off all shame and assaulted
basigissa. I found myself losing the society in which I had been born
and bred;* at such a time equanimity is out of place; I am tortured
with apprehension; how long will it be before suka is tuka? Bear with
me, I beseech you; I despair and have none to help me; do I not well to
be angry? It is no petty everyday peril, this threatened separation
from my long-tried familiars. My kissa, my talking bird that nestled in
my breast, he has torn away and named anew; my phassa, my nhssai, my
khossuphoi—all gone; and I had Aristarchus's own word that they were
mine; half my melissai he has lured to strange hives; Attica itself he
has invaded, and wrongfully annexed its Hymettus (as he calls it); and
you and the rest looked on at the seizure.

[*Footnote: For the probably corrupt passage § 7 fin.—§ 8 init. I
accept Dindorf’s rearrangement as follows: mechr men gar oligois
epecheirei, tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de taemeron kai ta homoia
epispomenon, sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti legein, kai oiston aen moi
to akousma kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep autois. 8. hupote d ek touton
arxamenon etolmaese kattiteron eipein kai kattuma kai pittan, eita
aperuthriasan kai basilitgan onomazein, aposteroun me ton
suggegenaemenun moi kai suntethrammenun grammatun, ou metrius ipi
toutois aganaktu.]


But why dwell on such trifles? I am driven from all Thessaly (Thettaly,
forsooth!), θαλασσα is now _mare clausum_ to me; he will not leave me a
poor garden-herb like seutlion, I have never a passalos to hang myself
upon. What a long-suffering letter I am myself, your own knowledge is
witness enough. When Zeta stole my smaragdos, and robbed me of all
Smyrna, I never took proceedings against him; Xi might break all
sunthhkai, and appeal to Thucydides (who ought to know) as sympathizing
with his xystem; I let them alone. My neighbour Rho I made no
difficulty about pardoning as an invalid, when he transplanted my
mursinai into his garden, or, in a fit of the spleen, took liberties
with my khopsh. So much for my temper.

Tau's, on the other hand, is naturally violent; its manifestations are
not confined to me. In proof that he has not spared other letters, but
assaulted Delta, Theta, Zeta, and almost the whole alphabet, I wish his
various victims to be put in the box. Now, Vowels of the jury, mark the
evidence of Delta:—'He robbed me of _endelecheia_, which he claimed,
quite illegally, as _entelecheia_.' Mark Theta beating his breast and
plucking out his hair in grief for the loss of _kolokunthh_. And Zeta
mourns for _surizein_ and _salpizein_—nay, _cannot_ mourn, for lack of
his gryzein. What tolerance is possible, what penalty adequate, for
this criminal letter's iniquities?

But his wrongs are not even limited to us, his own species; he has now
extended his operations to mankind, as I shall show. He does not permit
their tongues to work straight. (But that mention of mankind calls me
back for a moment, reminding me how he turns glossa into glotta, half
robbing me of the tongue itself. Ay, you are a disease of the tongue in
every sense, Tau.) But I return from that digression, to plead the
cause of mankind and its wrongs. The prisoner's designs include the
constraint, racking, and mutilation of their utterance. A man sees a
beautiful thing, and wishes to describe it as kalon, but in comes Tau,
and forces the man to say ταλόν: _he_ must have precedence everywhere,
of course. Another man has something to say about a vine, and lo,
before it is out, it is metamorphosed by this miserable creature into
misery; he has changed slaema to tlaema, with a suggestive hint of
τλήμων. And, not content with middle-class victims, he aims at the
Persian king himself, the one for whom land and sea are said to have
made way and changed their nature: Cyrus comes out at his bidding as
Tyrus.

Such are his verbal offences against man; his offences in deed remain.
Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for
introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body
that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they
set up the erections on which men are crucified. Stayros the vile
engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all
these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For
my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape—that
shape which he gave to the gibbet named Stayros after him by men.

H.



TIMON THE MISANTHROPE

_Timon. Zeus. Hermes. Plutus. Poverty. Gnathonides. Philiades. Demeas.
Thrasycles. Blepsias_.

_Tim_. O Zeus, thou arbiter of friendship, protector of the guest,
preserver of fellowship, lord of the hearth, launcher of the lightning,
avenger of oaths, compeller of clouds, utterer of thunder (and pray add
any other epithets; those cracked poets have plenty ready, especially
when they are in difficulties with their scansion; then it is that a
string of your names saves the situation and fills up the metrical
gaps), O Zeus, where is now your resplendent lightning, where your
deep-toned thunder, where the glowing, white-hot, direful bolt? we know
now 'tis all fudge and poetic moonshine—barring what value may attach
to the rattle of the names. That renowned projectile of yours, which
ranged so far and was so ready to your hand, has gone dead and cold, it
seems; never a spark left in it to scorch iniquity.

If men are meditating perjury, a smouldering lamp-wick is as likely to
frighten them off it as the omnipotent's levin-bolt; the brand you hold
over them is one from which they see neither flame nor smoke can come;
a little soot-grime is the worst that need be apprehended from a touch
of it. No wonder if Salmoneus challenged you to a thundering-match; he
was reasonable enough when he backed his artificial heat against so
cool-tempered a Zeus. Of course he was; there are you in your
opiate-trance, never hearing the perjurers nor casting a glance at
criminals, your glazed eyes dull to all that happens, and your ears as
deaf as a dotard's.

When you were young and keen, and your temper had some life in it, you
used to bestir yourself against crime and violence; there were no
armistices in those days; the thunderbolt was always hard at it, the
aegis quivering, the thunder rattling, the lightning engaged in a
perpetual skirmish. Earth was shaken like a sieve, buried in snow,
bombarded with hail. It rained cats and dogs (if you will pardon my
familiarity), and every shower was a waterspout. Why, in Deucalion's
time, hey presto, everything was swamped, mankind went under, and just
one little ark was saved, stranding on the top of Lycoreus and
preserving a remnant of human seed for the generation of greater
wickedness.

Mankind pays you the natural wages of your laziness; if any one offers
you a victim or a garland nowadays, it is only at Olympia as a
perfunctory accompaniment of the games; he does it not because he
thinks it is any good, but because he may as well keep up an old
custom. It will not be long, most glorious of deities, before they
serve you as you served Cronus, and depose you. I will not rehearse all
the robberies of your temple—those are trifles; but they have laid
hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had
not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they
might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they had
finished packing up the swag. But there sat the bold Giant-slayer and
Titan-conqueror letting them cut his hair, with a fifteen-foot
thunderbolt in his hand all the time! My good sir, when is this
careless indifference to cease? how long before you will punish such
wickedness? Phaethon-falls and Deucalion-deluges—a good many of them
will be required to suppress this swelling human insolence.

To leave generalities and illustrate from my own case—I have raised any
number of Athenians to high position, I have turned poor men into rich,
I have assisted every one that was in want, nay, flung my wealth
broadcast in the service of my friends, and now that profusion has
brought me to beggary, they do not so much as know me; I cannot get a
glance from the men who once cringed and worshipped and hung upon my
nod. If I meet one of them in the street, he passes me by as he might
pass the tombstone of one long dead; it has fallen face upwards,
loosened by time, but he wastes no moment deciphering it. Another will
take the next turning when he sees me in the distance; I am a sight of
ill omen, to be shunned by the man whose saviour and benefactor I had
been not so long ago.

Thus in disgrace with fortune, I have betaken me to this corner of the
earth, where I wear the smock-frock and dig for sixpence a day, with
solitude and my spade to assist meditation. So much gain I reckon upon
here—to be exempt from contemplating unmerited prosperity; no sight
that so offends the eye as that. And now, Son of Cronus and Rhea, may I
ask you to shake off that deep sound sleep of yours—why, Epimenides's
was a mere nap to it—, put the bellows to your thunderbolt or warm it
up in Etna, get it into a good blaze, and give a display of spirit,
like a manly vigorous Zeus? or are we to believe the Cretans, who show
your grave among their sights?

_Zeus_. Hermes, who is that calling out from Attica? there, on the
lower slopes of Hymettus—a grimy squalid fellow in a smock-frock; he is
bending over a spade or something; but he has a tongue in his head, and
is not afraid to use it. He must be a philosopher, to judge from his
fluent blasphemy.

_Her_. What, father! have you forgotten Timon—son of Echecratides, of
Collytus? many is the time he has feasted us on unexceptionable
victims; the rich _parvenu_ of the whole hecatombs, you know, who used
to do us so well at the Diasia.

_Zeus_. Dear, dear, _quantum mutatus_! is this the admired, the rich,
the popular? What has brought him to this pass? There he is in filth
and misery, digging for hire, labouring at that ponderous spade.

_Her_. Why, if you like to put it so, it was kindness and generosity
and universal compassion that ruined him; but it would be nearer the
truth to call him a fool and a simpleton and a blunderer; he did not
realize that his proteges were carrion crows and wolves; vultures were
feeding on his unfortunate liver, and he took them for friends and good
comrades, showing a fine appetite just to please him. So they gnawed
his bones perfectly clean, sucked out with great precision any marrow
there might be in them, and went off, leaving him as dry as a tree
whose roots have been severed; and now they do not know him or
vouchsafe him a nod—no such fools—, nor ever think of showing him
charity or repaying his gifts. That is how the spade and smock-frock
are accounted for; he is ashamed to show his face in town; so he hires
himself out to dig, and broods over his wrongs—the rich men he has made
passing him contemptuously by, apparently quite unaware that his name
is Timon.

_Zeus_. This is a case we must take up and see to. No wonder he is down
on his luck. We should be putting ourselves on the level of his
despicable sycophants, if we forgot all the fat ox and goat thighs he
has burnt on our altars; the savour of them is yet in my nostrils. But
I have been so busy, there is such a din of perjury, assault, and
burglary; I am so frightened of the temple-robbers—they swarm now, you
cannot keep them out, nor take a nap with any safety; and, with one
thing and another, it is an age since I had a look at Attica. I have
hardly been there since philosophy and argument came into fashion;
indeed, with their shouting-matches going on, prayers are quite
inaudible. One must sit with one's ears plugged, if one does not want
the drums of them cracked; such long vociferous rigmaroles about
Incorporeal Things, or something they call Virtue! That is how we came
to neglect this man—who really deserved better.

However, go to him now without wasting any more time, Hermes, and take
Plutus with you. Thesaurus is to accompany Plutus, and they are both to
stay with Timon, and not leave him so lightly this time, even though
the generous fellow does his best to find other hosts for them. As to
those parasites, and the ingratitude they showed him, I will attend to
them before long; they shall have their deserts as soon as I have got
the thunderbolt in order again. Its two best spikes are broken and
blunted; my zeal outran my discretion the other day when I took that
shot at Anaxagoras the sophist; the Gods non-existent, indeed! that was
what he was telling his disciples. However, I missed him (Pericles had
held up his hand to shield him), and the bolt glanced off on to the
Anaceum, set it on fire, and was itself nearly pulverized on the rock.
But meanwhile it will be quite sufficient punishment for them to see
Timon rolling in money.

_Her_. Nothing like lifting up your voice, making yourself a nuisance,
and showing a bold front; it is equally effective whether you are
pleading with juries or deities. Here is Timon developing from pauper
to millionaire, just because his prayer was loud and free enough to
startle Zeus; if he had dug quietly with his face to his work, he might
have dug to all eternity, for any notice he would have got.

_Pl_. Well, Zeus, I am not going to him.

_Zeus_. Your reason, good Plutus; have I not told you to go?

_Pl_. Good God! why, he insulted me, threw me about, dismembered me—me,
his old family friend—and practically pitchforked me out of the house;
he could not have been in a greater hurry to be rid of me if I had been
a live coal in his hand. What, go there again, to be transferred to
toadies and flatterers and harlots? No, no, Zeus; send me to people who
will appreciate the gift, take care of me, value and cherish me. Let
these gulls consort with the poverty which they prefer to me; she will
find them a smock-frock and a spade, and they can be thankful for a
miserable pittance of sixpence a day, these reckless squanderers of
1,000 pound presents.

_Zeus_. Ah, Timon will not treat you that way again. If his loins are
not of cast iron, his spade-work will have taught him a thing or two
about your superiority to poverty. You are so particular, you know;
now, you are finding fault with Timon for opening the door to you and
letting you wander at your own sweet will, instead of keeping you in
jealous seclusion. Yesterday it was another story: you were imprisoned
by rich men under bolts and locks and seals, and never allowed a
glimpse of sunlight. That was the burden of your complaint—you were
stifled in deep darkness. We saw you pale and careworn, your fingers
hooked with coin-counting, and heard how you would like to run away, if
only you could get the chance. It was monstrous, then, that you should
be kept in a bronze or iron chamber, like a Danae condemned to
virginity, and brought up by those stern unscrupulous tutors, Interest,
Debit and Credit.

They were perfectly ridiculous, you know, loving you to distraction,
but not daring to enjoy you when they might; you were in their power,
yet they could not give the reins to their passion; they kept awake
watching you with their eyes glued to bolt and seal; the enjoyment that
satisfied them was not to enjoy you themselves, but to prevent others'
enjoying you—true dogs in the manger. Yes, and then how absurd it was
that they should scrape and hoard, and end by being jealous of their
own selves! Ah, if they could but see that rascally
slave—steward—trainer—sneaking in bent on carouse! little enough _he_
troubles his head about the luckless unamiable owner at his nightly
accounts by a dim little half-fed lamp. How, pray, do you reconcile
your old strictures of this sort with your contrary denunciation of
Timon?

_Pl_. Oh, if you consider the thing candidly, you will find both
attitudes reasonable. It is clear enough that Timon's utter negligence
comes from slackness, and not from any consideration for me. As for the
other sort, who keep me shut up in the obscurity of strong-boxes,
intent on making me heavy and fat and unwieldy, never touching me
themselves, and never letting me see the light, lest some one else
should catch sight of me, I always thought of them as fools and
tyrants; what harm had I done that they should let me rot in close
confinement? and did not they know that in a little while they would
pass away and have to resign me to some other lucky man?

No, give me neither these nor the off-hand gentry; my beau ideal is the
man who steers a middle course, as far from complete abstention as from
utter profusion. Consider, Zeus, by your own great name; suppose a man
were to take a fair young wife, and then absolutely decline all jealous
precautions, to the point of letting her wander where she would by day
or night, keeping company with any one who had a mind to her—or put it
a little stronger, and let him be procurer, janitor, pander, and
advertiser of her charms in his own person—well, what sort of love is
his? come, Zeus, you have a good deal of experience, you know what love
is.

On the other hand, let a man make a suitable match for the express
purpose of raising heirs, and then let him neither himself have
anything to do with her ripe, yet modest, beauty, nor allow any other
to set eyes on it, but shut her up in barren, fruitless virginity; let
him say all the while that he is in love with her, and let his pallid
hue, his wasting flesh and his sunken eyes confirm the statement;—is he
a madman, or is he not? he should be raising a family and enjoying
matrimony; but he lets this fair-faced lovely girl wither away; he
might as well be bringing up a perpetual priestess of Demeter. And now
you understand my feelings when one set of people kick me about or
waste me by the bucketful, and the others clap irons on me like a
runaway convict.

_Zeus_. However, indignation is superfluous; both sets have just what
they deserve—one as hungry and thirsty and dry-mouthed as Tantalus,
getting no further than gaping at the gold; and the other finding its
food swept away from its very gullet, as the Harpies served Phineus.
Come, be off with you; you will find Timon has much more sense
nowadays.

_Pl_. Oh, of course! he will not do his best to let me run out of a
leaky vessel before I have done running in! oh no, he will not be
consumed with apprehensions of the inflow's gaining on the waste and
flooding him! I shall be supplying a cask of the Danaids; no matter how
fast I pour in, the thing will not hold water; every gallon will be out
almost before it is in; the bore of the waste-pipe is so large, and
never a plug.

_Zeus_. Well, if he does not stop the hole—if the leak is more than
temporary—you will run out in no time, and he can find his smock-frock
and spade again in the dregs of the cask. Now go along, both of you,
and make the man rich. And, Hermes, on your way back, remember to bring
the Cyclopes with you from Etna; my thunderbolt wants the grindstone;
and I have work for it as soon as it is sharp.

_Her_. Come along, Plutus. Hullo! limping? My good man, I did not know
you were lame as well as blind.

_Pl_. No, it is intermittent. As sure as Zeus sends me _to_ any one, a
sort of lethargy comes over me, my legs are like lead, and I can hardly
get to my journey's end; my destined host is sometimes an old man
before I reach him. As a parting guest, on the other hand, you may see
me wing my way swifter than any dream. 'Are you ready?' and almost
before 'Go' has sounded, up goes my name as winner; I have flashed
round the course absolutely unseen sometimes.

_Her_. You are not quite keeping to the truth; I could name you plenty
of people who yesterday had not the price of a halter to hang
themselves with, and to-day have developed into lavish men of fortune;
they drive their pair of high-steppers, whereas a donkey would have
been beyond their means before. They go about in purple raiment with
jewelled fingers, hardly convinced yet that their wealth is not all a
dream.

_Pl_. Ah, those are special cases, Hermes. I do not go on my own feet
on those occasions, and it is not Zeus who sends me, but Pluto, who has
his own ways of conferring wealth and making presents; Pluto and Plutus
are not unconnected, you see. When I am to flit from one house to
another, they lay me on parchment, seal me up carefully, make a parcel
of me and take me round. The dead man lies in some dark corner,
shrouded from the knees upward in an old sheet, with the cats fighting
for possession of him, while those who have expectations wait for me in
the public place, gaping as wide as young swallows that scream for
their mother's return.

Then the seal is taken off, the string cut, the parchment opened, and
my new owner's name made known. It is a relation, or a parasite, or
perhaps a domestic minion, whose value lay in his vices and his smooth
cheeks; he has continued to supply his master with all sorts of
unnatural pleasures beyond the years which might excuse such service,
and now the fine fellow is richly rewarded. But whoever it is, he
snatches me up, parchment included, and is off with me in a flash; he
used to be called Pyrrhias or Dromo or Tibius, but now he is Megacles,
Megabyzus, or Protarchus; off he goes, leaving the disappointed ones
staring at each other in very genuine mourning—over the fine fish which
has jumped out of the landing-net after swallowing their good bait.

The fellow who _has_ pounced on me has neither taste nor feeling; the
sight of fetters still gives him a start; crack a whip in his
neighbourhood, and his ears tingle; the treadmill is an abode of awe to
him. He is now insufferable—insults his new equals, and whips his old
fellows to see what that side of the transaction feels like. He ends by
finding a mistress, or taking to the turf, or being cajoled by
parasites; these have only to swear he is handsomer than Nireus, nobler
than Cecrops or Codrus, wiser than Odysseus, richer than a dozen
Croesuses rolled into one; and so the poor wretch disperses in a moment
what cost so many perjuries, robberies, and swindles to amass.

_Her_. A very fair picture. But when you go on your own feet, how can a
blind man like you find the way? Zeus sends you to people who he thinks
deserve riches; but how do you distinguish them?

_Pl_. Do you suppose I do find them? not much. I should scarcely have
passed Aristides by, and gone to Hipponicus, Callias, and any number of
other Athenians whose merits could have been valued in copper.

_Her_. Well, but what do you do when he sends you?

_Pl_. I just wander up and down till I come across some one; the first
comer takes me off home with him, and thanks—whom but the God of
windfalls, yourself?

_Her_. So Zeus is in error, and you do not enrich deserving persons
according to his pleasure?

_Pl_. My dear fellow, how can he expect it? He knows I am blind, and he
sends me groping about for a thing so hard to detect, and so nearly
extinct this long time, that a Lynceus would have his work cut out
spying for its dubious remains. So you see, as the good are few, and
cities are crowded with multitudes of the bad, I am much more likely to
come upon the latter in my rambles, and they keep me in their nets.

_Her_. But when you are leaving them, how do you find escape so easy?
you do not know the way.

_Pl_. Ah, there is just one occasion which brings me quickness of eye
and foot; and that is flight.

_Her_. Yet another question. You are not only blind (excuse my
frankness), but pallid and decrepit; how comes it, then, that you have
so many lovers? All men's looks are for you; if they get possession of
you, they count themselves happy men; if they miss you, life is not
worth living. Why, I have known not a few so sick for love of you that
they have scaled some sky-pointing crag, and thence hurled themselves
to unplumbed ocean depths [Footnote: See Apology for 'The Dependent
Scholar,'], when they thought they were scorned by you, because you
would not acknowledge their first salute. I am sure you know yourself
well enough to confess that they must be lunatics, to rave about such
charms as yours.

_Pl_. Why, you do not suppose they see me in my true shape, lame,
blind, and so forth?

_Her_. How else, unless they are all as blind themselves?

_Pl_. They are not blind, my dear boy; but the ignorant misconceptions
now so prevalent obscure their vision. And then I contribute; not to be
an absolute fright when they see me, I put on a charming mask, all gilt
and jewels, and dress myself up. They take the mask for my face, fall
in love with its beauty, and are dying to possess it. If any one were
to strip and show me to them naked, they would doubtless reproach
themselves for their blindness in being captivated by such an ugly
misshapen creature,

_Her_. How about fruition, then? When they are rich, and have put the
mask on themselves, they are still deluded; if any one tries to take it
off, they would sooner part with their heads than with it; and it is
not likely they do not know by that time that the beauty is
adventitious, now that they have an inside view.

_Pl_. There too I have powerful allies.

_Her_. Namely—?

_Pl_. When a man makes my acquaintance, and opens the door to let me
in, there enter unseen by my side Arrogance, Folly, Vainglory,
Effeminacy, Insolence, Deceit, and a goodly company more. These possess
his soul; he begins to admire mean things, pursues what he should
abhor, reveres me amid my bodyguard of the insinuating vices which I
have begotten, and would consent to anything sooner than part with me.

_Her_. What a smooth, slippery, unstable, evasive fellow you are,
Plutus! there is no getting a firm hold of you; you wriggle through
one's fingers somehow, like an eel or a snake. Poverty is so
different—sticky, clinging, all over hooks; any one who comes near her
is caught directly, and finds it no simple matter to get clear. But all
this gossip has put business out of our heads.

_Pl_. Business? What business?

_Her_. We have forgotten to bring Thesaurus, and we cannot do without
him.

_Pl_. Oh, never mind him. When I come up to see you, I leave him on
earth, with strict orders to stay indoors, and open to no one unless he
hears my voice.

_Her_. Then we may make our way into Attica; hold on to my cloak till I
find Timon's retreat.

_Pl_. It is just as well to keep touch; if you let me drop behind, I am
as likely as not to be snapped up by Hyperbolus or Cleon. But what is
that noise? it sounds like iron on stone.

_Her_. Ah, here is Timon close to us; what a steep stony little plot he
has got to dig! Good gracious, I see Poverty and Toil in attendance,
Endurance, Wisdom, Courage, and Hunger's whole company in full
force—much more efficient than your guards, Plutus.

_Pl_. Oh dear, let us make the best of our way home, Hermes. We shall
never produce any impression on a man surrounded by such troops.

_Her_. Zeus thought otherwise; so no cowardice.

_Pov_. Slayer of Argus, whither away, you two hand in hand?

_Her_. Zeus has sent us to Timon here.

_Pov_. Now? What has Plutus to do with Timon now? I found him suffering
under Luxury's treatment, put him in the charge of Wisdom and Toil
(whom you see here), and made a good worthy man of him. Do you take me
for such a contemptible helpless creature that you can rob me of my
little all? have I perfected him in virtue, only to see Plutus take
him, trust him to Insolence and Arrogance, make him as soft and limp
and silly as before, and return him to me a worn-out rag again?

_Her_. It is Zeus's will.

_Pov_. I am off, then. Toil, Wisdom, and the rest of you, quick march!
Well, he will realize his loss before long; he had a good help meet in
me, and a true teacher; with me he was healthy in body and vigorous in
spirit; he lived the life of a man, and could be independent, and see
the thousand and one needless refinements in all their absurdity.

_Her_. There they go, Plutus; let us come to him.

_Tim_. Who are you, villains? What do you want here, interrupting a
hired labourer? You shall have something to take with you, confound you
all! These clods and stones shall provide you with a broken head or
two.

_Her_. Stop, Timon, don't throw. We are not men; I am Hermes, and this
is Plutus; Zeus has sent us in answer to your prayers. So knock off
work, take your fortune, and much good may it do you!

_Tim_. I dare say you _are_ Gods; that shall not save you. I hate every
one, man or God; and as for this blind fellow, whoever he may be, I am
going to give him one over the head with my spade.

_Pl_. For God's sake, Hermes, let us get out of this! the man is
melancholy-mad, I believe; he will do me a mischief before I get off.

_Her_. Now don't be foolish, Timon; cease overdoing the ill-tempered
boor, hold out your hands, take your luck, and be a rich man again.
Have Athens at your feet, and from your solitary eminence you can
forget ingratitude.

_Tim_. I have no use for you; leave me in peace; my spade is riches
enough for me; for the rest, I am perfectly happy if people will let me
alone.

_Her_. My dear sir—so unsociable?

So stiff and stubborn a reply to Zeus?


A misanthrope you may well be, after the way men have treated you; but
with the Gods so thoughtful for you, you need not be a misotheist.

_Tim_. Very well, Hermes; I am extremely obliged to you and Zeus for
your thoughtfulness—there; but I will not have Plutus.

_Her_. Why, pray?

_Tim_. He brought me countless troubles long ago—put me in the power of
flatterers, set designing persons on me, stirred up ill-feeling,
corrupted me with indulgence, exposed me to envy, and wound up with
treacherously deserting me at a moment's notice. Then the excellent
Poverty gave me a drilling in manly labour, conversed with me in all
frankness and sincerity, rewarded my exertions with a sufficiency, and
taught me to despise superfluities; all hopes of a livelihood were to
depend on myself, and I was to know my true wealth, unassailable by
parasites' flattery or informers' threats, hasty legislatures or
decree-mongering legislators, and which even the tyrant's machinations
cannot touch.

So, toil-hardened, working with a will at this bit of ground, my eyes
rid of city offences, I get bread enough and to spare out of my spade.
Go your ways, then, Hermes, and take Plutus back to Zeus. I am quite
content to let every man of them go hang.

_Her_. Oh, that would be a pity; they are not all hanging-ripe. Don't
make a passionate child of yourself, but admit Plutus. Zeus's gifts are
too good to be thrown away.

_Pl_. Will you condescend to argue with me, Timon? or does my voice
provoke you?

_Tim_. Oh, talk away; but be brief; no rascally lawyer's 'opening the
case.' I can put up with a few words from you, for Hermes' sake.

_Pl_. A speech of some length might seem to be needed, considering the
number of your charges; however, just examine your imputations of
injustice. It was I that gave you those great objects of
desire—consideration, precedence, honours, and every delight; all eyes
and tongues and attentions were yours—my gifts; and if flatterers
abused you, I am not responsible for that. It is I who should rather
complain; you prostituted me vilely to scoundrels, whose laudations and
cajolery of you were only samples of their designs upon me. As to your
saying that I wound up by betraying you, you have things topsy-turvy
again; _I_ may complain; you took every method to estrange me, and
finally kicked me out neck and crop. That is why your revered Dame
Poverty has supplied you with a smock-frock to replace your soft
raiment. Why, I begged and prayed Zeus (and Hermes heard me) that I
might be excused from revisiting a person who had been so unfriendly to
me as you.

_Her_. But you see how he is changed, Plutus; you need not be afraid to
live with him now. Just go on digging, Timon; and you, Plutus, put
Thesaurus in position; he will come at your call.

_Tim_. I must obey, and be a rich man again, Hermes; what can one do,
when Gods insist? But reflect what troubles you are bringing on my
luckless head; I have had a blissful life of late, and now for no fault
of my own I am to have my hands full of gold and care again.

_Her_. Hard, intolerable fate! yet endure for my sake, if only that the
flatterers may burst themselves with envy. And now for heaven, via
Etna.

_Pl_. He is off, I suppose, from the beating of his wings. Now, you
stay where you are, while I go and fetch Thesaurus to you; or rather,
dig hard. Here, Gold! Thesaurus I say! answer Timon's summons and let
him unearth you. Now, Timon, with a will; a deep stroke or two. I will
leave you together.

_Tim_. Come, spade, show your mettle; stick to it; invite Thesaurus to
step up from his retreat…. O God of Wonders! O mystic priests! O lucky
Hermes! whence this flood of gold? Sure, 'tis all a dream; methinks
'twill be ashes when I wake. And yet—coined gold, ruddy and heavy, a
feast of delight!

O gold, the fairest gift to mortal eyes!


be it night, or be it day,

Thou dost outshine all else like living fire.


Come to me, my own, my beloved. I doubt the tale no longer; well might
Zeus take the shape of gold; where is the maid that would not open her
bosom to receive so fair a lover gliding through the roof?

Talk of Midas, Croesus, Delphic treasures! they were all nothing to
Timon and his wealth; why, the Persian King could not match it. My
spade, my dearest smock-frock, you must hang, a votive offering to Pan.
And now I will buy up this desert corner, and build a tiny castle for
my treasure, big enough for me to live in all alone, and, when I am
dead, to lie in. And be the rule and law of my remaining days to shun
all men, be blind to all men, scorn all men. Friendship, hospitality,
society, compassion—vain words all. To be moved by another's tears, to
assist another's need—be such things illegal and immoral. Let me live
apart like a wolf; be Timon's one friend—Timon.

All others are my foes and ill-wishers; to hold communion with them is
pollution; to set eyes upon one of them marks the day unholy; let them
be to me even as images of bronze or stone. I will receive no herald
from them, keep with them no truce; the bounds of my desert are the
line they may not cross. Cousin and kinsman, neighbour and
countryman—these are dead useless names, wherein fools may find a
meaning. Let Timon keep his wealth to himself, scorn all men, and live
in solitary luxury, quit of flattery and vulgar praise; let him
sacrifice and feast alone, his own associate and neighbour, far from*
the world. Yea, when his last day comes, let there be none to close his
eyes and lay him out, but himself alone.

[*Footnote: Reading, with Dindorf, _hekas on_ for _ekseion_.]


Be the name he loves Misanthropus, and the marks whereby he may be
known peevishness and spleen, wrath and rudeness and abhorrence. If
ever one burning to death should call for help against the flames, let
me help—with pitch and oil. If another be swept past me by a winter
torrent, and stretch out his hands for aid, then let mine press him
down head under, that he never rise again. So shall they receive as
they have given. Mover of this resolution—Timon, son of Echecratides of
Collytus. Presiding officer—the same Timon. The ayes have it. Let it be
law, and duly observed.

All the same, I would give a good deal to have the fact of my enormous
wealth generally known; they would all be fit to hang themselves over
it…. Why, what is this? Well, that is quick work. Here they come
running from every point of the compass, all dusty and panting; they
have smelt out the gold somehow or other. Now, shall I get on top of
this knoll, keep up a galling fire of stones from my point of vantage,
and get rid of them that way? Or shall I make an exception to my law by
parleying with them for once? contempt might hit harder than stones.
Yes, I think that is better; I will stay where I am, and receive them.
Let us see, who is this in front? Ah, Gnathonides the flatterer; when I
asked an alms of him the other day, he offered me a halter; many a cask
of my wine has he made a beast of himself over. I congratulate him on
his speed; first come, first served.

_Gna_. What did I tell them?—Timon was too good a man to be abandoned
by Providence. How are you, Timon? as good-looking and good-tempered,
as good a fellow, as ever?

_Tim_. And you, Gnathonides, still teaching vultures rapacity, and men
cunning?

_Gna_. Ah, he always liked his little joke. But where do you dine? I
have brought a new song with me, a march out of the last musical thing
on.

_Tim_. It will be a funeral march, then, and a very touching one, with
spade _obbligato_.

_Gna_. What means this? This is assault, Timon; just let me find a
witness! … Oh, my God, my God! … I'll have you before the Areopagus for
assault and battery.

_Tim_. You'd better not wait much longer, or you'll have to make it
murder.

_Gna_. Mercy, mercy! … Now, a little gold ointment to heal the wound;
it is a first-rate styptic.

_Tim_. What! you _won't_ go, won't you?

_Gna_. Oh, I am going. But you shall repent this. Alas, so genial once,
and now so rude!

_Tim_. Now who is this with the bald crown? Why, it is Philiades; if
there is a loathsome flatterer, it is he. When I sang that song that
nobody else would applaud, he lauded me to the skies, and swore no
dying swan could be more tuneful; his reward was one of my farms, and a
500 pounds portion for his daughter. And then when he found I was ill,
and had come to him for assistance, his generous aid took the form of
blows.

_Phil_. You shameless creatures! yes, yes, _now_ you know Timon's
merits! _now_ Gnathonides would be his friend and boon-companion! well,
he has the right reward of ingratitude. Some of us were his familiars
and playmates and neighbours; but _we_ hold back a little; we would not
seem to thrust ourselves upon him. Greeting, lord Timon; pray let me
warn you against these abominable flatterers; they are your humble
servants during meal-times, and else about as useful as carrion crows.
Perfidy is the order of the day; everywhere ingratitude and vileness. I
was just bringing a couple of hundred pounds, for your immediate
necessities, and was nearly here before I heard of your splendid
fortune. So I just came on to give you this word of caution; though
indeed you are wise enough (I would take your advice before Nestor's
myself) to need none of my counsel.

_Tim_. Quite so, Philiades. But come near, will you not, and receive
my—spade!

_Phil_. Help, help! this thankless brute has broken my head, for giving
him good counsel.

_Tim_. Now for number three. Lawyer Demeas—my cousin, as he calls
himself, with a decree in his hand. Between three and four thousand it
was that I paid in to the Treasury in ready money for him; he had been
fined that amount and imprisoned in default, and I took pity on him.
Well, the other day he was distributing-officer of the festival money
[Footnote: Every citizen had the right to receive from the State the
small sum which would pay for his admission to theatrical or other
festival entertainments.]; when I applied for my share, he pretended I
was not a citizen.

_Dem_. Hail, Timon, ornament of our race, pillar of Athens, shield of
Hellas! The Assembly and both Councils are met, and expect your
appearance. But first hear the decree which I have proposed in your
honour. 'WHEREAS Timon son of Echecratides of Collytus who adds to high
position and character a sagacity unmatched in Greece is a consistent
and indefatigable promoter of his country's good and Whereas he has
been victorious at Olympia on one day in boxing wrestling and running
as well as in the two and the four-horse chariot races—'

_Tim_. Why, I was never so much as a spectator at Olympia.

_Dem_. What does that matter? you will be some day. It looks better to
have a good deal of that sort in—'and Whereas he fought with
distinction last year at Acharnae cutting two Peloponnesian companies
to pieces—'

_Tim_. Good work that, considering that my name was not on the
muster-rolls, because I could not afford a suit of armour.

_Dem_. Ah, you are modest; but it would be ingratitude in us to forget
your services—'and Whereas by political measures and responsible advice
and military action he has conferred great benefits on his country Now
for all these reasons it is the pleasure of the Assembly and the
Council the ten divisions of the High Court and the Borough Councils
individually and collectively THAT a golden statue of the said Timon be
placed on the Acropolis alongside of Athene with a thunderbolt in the
hand and a seven-rayed aureole on the head Further that golden garlands
be conferred on him and proclaimed this day at the New Tragedies
[Footnote: See _Dionysia_ in Notes] the said day being kept in his
honour as the Dionysia. Mover of the Decree Demeas the pleader the said
Timon's near relation and disciple the said Timon being as
distinguished in pleading as in all else wherein it pleases him to
excel.'

So runs the decree. I had designed also to present to you my son, whom
I have named Timon after you.

_Tim_. Why, I thought you were a bachelor, Demeas.

_Dem_. Ah, but I intend to marry next year; my child—which is to be a
boy—I hereby name Timon.

_Tim_. I doubt whether you will feel like marrying, my man, when I have
given you—this!

_Dem_. Oh Lord! what is that for? … You are plotting a _coup d'etat_,
you Timon; you assault free men, and you are neither a free man nor a
citizen yourself. You shall soon be called to account for your crimes;
it was you set fire to the Acropolis, for one thing.

_Tim_. Why, you scoundrel, the Acropolis has not been set on fire; you
are a common blackmailer.

_Dem_. You got your gold by breaking into the Treasury.

_Tim_. It has not been broken into, either; you are not even plausible.

_Dem_. There is time for the burglary yet; meantime, you are in
possession of the treasures.

_Tim_. Well, here is another for you, anyhow.

_Dem_. Oh! oh! my back!

_Tim_. Don't make such a noise, if you don't want a third. It would be
too absurd, you know, if I could cut two companies of Spartans to
pieces without my armour, and not be able to give a single little
scoundrel his deserts. My Olympic boxing and wrestling victories would
be thrown away.

Whom have we now? is this Thrasycles the philosopher? sure enough it
is. A halo of beard, eyebrows an inch above their place, superiority in
his air, a look that might storm heaven, locks waving to the wind—'tis
a very Boreas or Triton from Zeuxis' pencil. This hero of the careful
get-up, the solemn gait, the plain attire—in the morning he will utter
a thousand maxims, expounding Virtue, arraigning self- indulgence,
lauding simplicity; and then, when he gets to dinner after his bath,
his servant fills him a bumper (he prefers it neat), and draining this
Lethe-draught he proceeds to turn his morning maxima inside out; he
swoops like a hawk on dainty dishes, elbows his neighbour aside, fouls
his beard with trickling sauce, laps like a dog, with his nose in his
plate, as if he expected to find Virtue there, and runs his finger all
round the bowl, not to lose a drop of the gravy. Let him monopolize
pastry or joint, he will still criticize the carving—that is all the
satisfaction his ravenous greed brings him—; when the wine is in,
singing and dancing are delights not fierce enough; he must brawl and
rave. He has plenty to say in his cups—he is then at his best in that
kind—upon temperance and decorum; he is full of these when his
potations have reduced him to ridiculous stuttering. Next the wine
disagrees with him, and at last he is carried out of the room, holding
on with all his might to the flute-girl. Take him sober, for that
matter, and you will hardly find his match at lying, effrontery or
avarice. He is _facile princeps_ of flatterers, perjury sits on his
tongue-tip, imposture goes before him, and shamelessness is his good
comrade; oh, he is a most ingenious piece of work, finished at all
points, a _multum in parvo_. I am afraid his kind heart will be grieved
presently. Why, how is this, Thrasycles? I must say, you have taken
your time about coming.

_Thr_. Ah, Timon, I am not come like the rest of the crowd; _they_ are
dazzled by your wealth; they are gathered together with an eye to gold
and silver and high living; they will soon be showing their servile
tricks before your unsuspicious, generous self. As for me, you know a
crust is all the dinner I care for; the relish I like best is a bit of
thyme or cress; on festal days I may go as far as a sprinkling of salt.
My drink is the crystal spring; and this threadbare cloak is better
than your gay robes. Gold—I value it no higher than pebbles on the
beach. What brought _me_ was concern for you; I would not have you
ruined by this same pestilent wealth, this temptation for plunderers;
many is the man it has sunk in helpless misery. Take my advice, and
fling it bodily into the sea; a good man, to whom the wealth of
philosophy is revealed, has no need of the other. It does not matter
about deep water, my good sir; wade in up to your waist when the tide
is near flood, and _let no one see you but me_. Or if that is not
satisfactory, here is another plan even better. Get it all out of the
house as quick as you can, not reserving a penny for yourself, and
distribute it to the poor five shillings to one, five pounds to
another, a hundred to a third; philosophy might constitute a claim to a
double or triple share. For my part—and I do not ask for myself, only
to divide it among my needy friends—I should be quite content with as
much as my scrip would hold; it is something short of two standard
bushels; if one professes philosophy, one must be moderate and have few
needs—none that go beyond the capacity of a scrip.

_Tim_. Very right, Thrasycles. But instead of a mere scripful, pray
take a whole headful of clouts, standard measure by the spade.

_Thr_. Land of liberty, equality, legality! protect me against this
ruffian!

_Tim_. What is your grievance, my good man? is the measure short? here
is a pint or two extra, then, to put it right.

Why, what now? here comes a crowd; friend Blepsias, Laches, Gniphon;
their name is legion; they shall howl soon. I had better get up on the
rock; my poor tired spade wants a little rest; I will collect all the
stones I can lay hands on, and pepper them at long range.

_Bl_. Don't throw, Timon; we are going.

_Tim_. Whether the retreat will be bloodless, however, is another
question.

H.



PROMETHEUS ON CAUCASUS

_Hermes. Hephaestus. Prometheus._

_Her_. This, Hephaestus, is the Caucasus, to which it is our painful
duty to nail our companion. We have now to select a suitable crag, free
from snow, on which the chains will have a good hold, and the prisoner
will hang in all publicity.

_Heph_. True. It will not do to fix him too low down, or these _men_ of
his might come to their maker's assistance; nor at the top, where he
would be invisible from the earth. What do you say to a middle course?
Let him hang over this precipice, with his arms stretched across from
crag to crag.

_Her_. The very thing. Steep rocks, slightly overhanging, inaccessible
on every side; no foothold but a mere ledge, with scarcely room for the
tips of one's toes; altogether a sweet spot for a crucifixion. Now,
Prometheus, come and be nailed up; there is no time to lose.

_Prom_. Nay, hear me; Hephaestus! Hermes! I suffer injustice: have
compassion on my woes!

_Her_. In other words, disobey orders, and promptly be gibbeted in your
stead! Do you suppose there is not room on the Caucasus to peg out a
couple of us? Come, your right hand! clamp it down, Hephaestus, and in
with the nails; bring down the hammer with a will. Now the left; make
sure work of that too.—So!—The eagle will shortly be here, to trim your
liver; so ingenious an artist is entitled to every attention.

_Prom_. O Cronus, and Iapetus, and Mother Earth! Behold the sufferings
of the innocent!

_Her_. Why, as to innocence,—to begin with, there was that business of
the sacrificial meats, your manner of distributing which was most
unfair, most disingenuous: you got all the choice parts for yourself,
and put Zeus off with bones 'wrapped up in shining fat'; I remember the
passage in Hesiod; those are his very words. Then you made these human
beings; creatures of unparalleled wickedness, the women especially. And
to crown all, you stole fire, the most precious possession of the Gods,
and gave it to them. And with all this on your conscience, you protest
that you have done nothing to deserve captivity.

_Prom_. Ah, Hermes; you are as bad as Hector; you 'blame the
blameless.' For such crimes as these, I deserve a round pension, if
justice were done. And by the way, I should like, if you can spare the
time, to answer to these charges, and satisfy you of the injustice of
my sentence. You can employ your practised eloquence on behalf of Zeus,
and justify his conduct in nailing me up here at the Gates of the
Caspian, for all Scythia to behold and pity.

_Her_. There is nothing to be gained now by an appeal to another court;
it is too late. Proceed, however. We have to wait in any case till the
eagle comes to look after that liver of yours; and the time might be
worse spent than in listening to the subtleties of such a master in
impudence as yourself.

_Prom_. You begin then, Hermes. Exert all your powers of invective;
leave no stone unturned to establish the righteousness of papa's
judgements.—You, Hephaestus, shall compose the jury.

_Heph_. The jury! Not a bit of it; I am a party in this case. My
furnace has been cold, ever since you stole that fire.

_Prom_. Well, at this rate you had better divide the prosecution
between you. You conduct the case of larceny, and Hermes can handle the
man-making, and the misappropriation of meat. I shall expect a great
deal of you; you are both artists.

_Heph_. Hermes shall speak for me. The law is not in my line; my forge
takes up most of my time. But Hermes is an orator; he has made a study
of these things.

_Prom_. Well! I should never have thought that Hermes would have the
heart to reproach me with larceny; he ought to have a fellow-feeling
for me there. However, with this further responsibility on your
shoulders, there is no time to be lost, son of Maia; out with your
accusation, and have done with it.

_Her_. To deal adequately with your crimes, Prometheus, would require
many words and much preparation. It is not enough to mention the
several counts of the accusation; how, entrusted with the distribution
of meats, you defrauded the crown by retaining the choicer portions for
your own use; how you created the race of men, with absolutely no
justification for so doing; how you stole fire and conveyed it to these
same men. You seem not to realize, my friend, that, all-things
considered, Zeus has dealt very handsomely by you. Now, if you deny the
charges, I shall be compelled to establish your guilt at some length,
and to set the facts in the clearest possible light. But if you admit
the distribution of meat in the manner described, the introduction of
men, and the theft of fire,—then my case is complete, and there is no
more to be said. To expatiate further would be to talk nonsense.

_Prom_. Perhaps there has been some nonsense talked already; that
remains to be seen. But as you say your case is now complete, I will
see what I can do in the way of refutation. And first about that meat.
Though, upon my word, I blush for Zeus when I name it: to think that he
should be so touchy about trifles, as to send off a God of my quality
to crucifixion, just because he found a little bit of bone in his
share! Does he forget the services I have rendered him? And does he
think what it is that he is so angry about, and how childish it is to
show temper about a little thing like that? What if he did miss getting
the better share? Why, Hermes, these tricks that are played over the
wine-cups are not worth thinking twice about. A joke, perhaps, is
carried a little too far, in the warmth of the feast; still, it is a
joke, and resentment should be left behind in the dregs of the bowl. I
have no patience with your long memories; this nursing of grievances,
this raking up of last night's squabbles, is unworthy of a king, let
alone a king of Gods. Once take away from our feasts the little
elegancies of quip and crank and wile, and what is left? Muzziness;
repletion; silence;—cheerful accompaniments these to the wine-bowl! For
my part, I never supposed that Zeus would give the matter a thought the
next morning; much less that he would make such a stir about it, and
think himself so mightily injured; my little manoeuvre with the meat
was merely a playful experiment, to see which he would choose. It might
have been worse. Instead of giving him the inferior half, I might have
defrauded him of the whole. And what if I had? Would that have been a
case for putting heaven and earth in commotion, for deep designs of
chain and cross and Caucasus, dispatchings of eagles, rendings of
livers? These things tell a sad tale, do they not, of the puny soul,
the little mind, the touchy temper of the aggrieved party? How would he
take the loss of a whole ox, who storms to such purpose over a few
pounds of meat? How much more reasonable is the conduct of mortals,
though one would have expected them to be more irritable than Gods! A
mortal would never want his cook crucified for dipping a finger into
the stew-pan, or filching a mouthful from the roast; they overlook
these things. At the worst their resentment is satisfied with a box on
the ears or a rap on the head. I find no precedent among them for
crucifixion in such cases. So much for the affair of the meat; there is
little credit to be got in the refutation of such a charge, and still
less in the bringing of it.

I am next to speak of my creation of mankind. And here the terms of
your accusation are ambiguous. I have to choose between two distinct
possibilities. Do you maintain that I had no right to create men at
all, that I ought to have left the senseless clay alone? Or do you only
complain of the form in which I designed them? However, I shall have
something to say on both points. I shall first endeavour to show that
no harm has accrued to the Gods from my bringing mankind into
existence; and shall then proceed to the positive advantages and
improvements which have resulted to them from the peopling of the
earth. The question as to the harm done by my innovation is best
answered by an appeal to the past, to those days when the race of
heaven-born Gods stood alone, and earth was a hideous shapeless mass, a
tangle of rude vegetation. The Gods had no altars then, nor temples
(for who should raise them?), no images of wood or stone, such as now
abound in every corner of the earth, and are honoured with all
observance. It was to me that the idea occurred—amid my ceaseless
meditations on the common welfare, on the aggrandizement of the Gods
and the promotion of order and beauty in the universe—of setting all to
rights with a handful of clay; of creating living things, and moulding
them after our own likeness. I saw what was lacking to our godhead:
some counterpart, some foil wherein to set off its blessedness. And
that counterpart must be mortal; but in all else exquisitely contrived,
perfect in intelligence, keen to appreciate our superiority. Thereupon,
I moulded my material,

With water mingling clay,


and created man, calling in Athene to aid me in the task. And this is
my rank offence against the Gods. Destructive work,—to reduce inanimate
clay to life and motion! The Gods, it seems, are Gods no longer, now
that there are mortal creatures on the earth. To judge at least by
Zeus's indignation, one would suppose that the Gods suffered some loss
of prestige from the creation of mankind; unless it is that he is
afraid of another revolt, of their waging war with heaven, like the
Giants.

That the cause of the Gods suffered nothing at my hands is evident;
show me the slightest instance to the contrary, and I will say no more;
I have but my deserts. But for the positive benefits I have conferred,
use the evidence of your eyes. The earth, no longer barren and
untilled, is decked with cities and farms and the fruits of
cultivation; the sea has its ships, the islands their inhabitants.
Everywhere are altars and temples, everywhere festivals and sacrifices:

  Zeus with his presence fills their gatherings,
  He fills their streets.


Had I created mankind for my own private convenience, it might perhaps
have denoted a grasping spirit: but I made them common property; they
are at the service of every God of you. Nay more: temples of Zeus, and
Apollo, and Hera, temples of Hermes, are everywhere to be seen; but who
ever saw a temple of Prometheus? You may judge from this, how far I
have sacrificed the common cause to my private ambition.

And further. Consider, Hermes: can any good thing whatsoever, be it
gift of Nature or work of our hands, give the full measure of enjoyment
to its possessor, when there is none to see, none to admire? You see
whither my question tends? But for mankind, the glories of the universe
must have been without a witness; and there was little satisfaction to
be derived from a wealth which was doomed to excite no envy in others.
We should have lacked a standard for comparison; and should never have
known the extent of our happiness, while all were as happy as
ourselves. The great is not great, till it is compared with the small.
Yet instead of honouring me for my political insight, you crucify me;
such are the wages of wisdom!

Ah, but (you will say) there is so much wickedness among them;
adultery, war, incest, parricide. Well, I fancy these are not unknown
among ourselves? And I am sure no one would think that a reason for
saying that Uranus and Ge made a mistake in creating us. Or again, you
will complain that we have so much trouble in looking after them. At
that rate, a shepherd ought to object to the possession of a flock,
because he has to look after it. Besides, a certain show of occupation
is rather gratifying than otherwise; the responsibility is not
unwelcome,—it helps to pass the time. What should we do, if we had not
mankind to think of? There would be nothing to live for; we should sit
about drinking nectar and gorging ourselves with ambrosia. But what
fairly takes away my breath is, your assurance in finding fault with my
_women_ in particular, when all the time you are in love with them: our
bulls and satyrs and swans are never tired of making descents upon the
Earth; women, they find, are good enough to be made the mothers of
Gods!

Yes, yes (you will say), it was quite right that men should be created,
but they should not have been made in our likeness. And what better
model could I have taken than this, whose perfection I knew? Was I to
make them brute beasts without understanding? Had they been other than
they are, how should they have paid you due honour and sacrifice? When
the hecatombs are getting ready, you think nothing of a journey to the
ends of the earth to see the 'blameless Ethiopians'; and my reward for
procuring you these advantages is—crucifixion! But on this subject I
have said enough.

And now, with your permission, I will approach the subject of that
stolen fire, of which we hear so much. I have a question to ask, which
I beg you will answer frankly. Has there been one spark less fire in
Heaven, since men shared it with us? Of course not. It is the nature of
fire, that it does not become less by being imparted to others. A fire
is not put out by kindling another from it. No, this is sheer envy: you
cannot bear that men should have a share of this necessary, though you
have suffered no harm thereby. For shame! Gods should be beneficent,
'givers of good'; they should be above all envy. Had I taken away fire
altogether, and left not a spark behind, it would have been no great
loss. You have no use for it. You are never cold; you need no
artificial light; nor is ambrosia improved by boiling. To man, on the
other hand, fire is indispensable for many purposes, particularly for
those of sacrifice; how else are they to fill their streets with the
savour of burnt-offerings, and the fumes of frankincense? how else to
burn fat thigh-pieces upon your altars? I observe that you take a
particular pleasure in the steam arising therefrom, and think no feast
more delicious than the smell of roast meat, as it mounts heavenwards

In eddying clouds of smoke.


Your present complaint, you see, is sadly at variance with this taste.
I wonder you do not forbid the Sun to shine on mankind. He too is of
fire, and fire of a purer and diviner quality. Has anything been said
to _him_ about his lavish expenditure of your property?

And now I have done. If there is any flaw in my defence, it is for you
two to refute me. I shall answer your objections in due course.

_Her_. Nay, you are too hard for us, Prometheus; we will not attempt a
sophist of your mettle. Well for you that Zeus is not within earshot,
or you would have had a round dozen of hungry vultures to reckon with,
for certain; in clearing your own character, you have grievously
mishandled his. But one thing puzzles me: you are a prophet; you ought
to have foreseen your sentence.

_Prom_. All this I knew, and more than this; for I shall be released;
nay, even now the day is not far off when one of your blood shall come
from Thebes, and shoot this eagle with which you threaten me [Footnote:
See _Prometheus_ in Notes.].

_Her_. With all my heart! I shall be delighted to see you free again,
and feasting in our midst; but not, my friend, not carving for us!

_Prom_. You may take my word for it; I shall be with you again. I have
the wherewithal to pay abundantly for my ransom.

_Her_. Oh, indeed? Come, tell us all about it.

_Prom_. You know Thetis—But no; the secret is best kept. Ransom and
reward depend upon it.

_Her_. Well, you know best. Now, Hephaestus, we must be going; see,
here comes the eagle.—Bear a brave heart, Prometheus; and all speed to
your Theban archer, who is to set a term to this creature's activity.

F.



DIALOGUES OF THE GODS

I

_Prometheus. Zeus_

_Prom_. Release me, Zeus; I have suffered enough.

_Zeus_. Release you? you? Why, by rights your irons should be heavier,
you should have the whole weight of Caucasus upon you, and instead of
one, a dozen vultures, not just pecking at your liver, but scratching
out your eyes. You made these abominable human creatures to vex us, you
stole our fire, you invented women. I need not remind you how you
overreached me about the meat-offerings; my portion, bones disguised in
fat: yours, all the good.

_Prom_. And have I not been punished enough—riveted to the Caucasus all
these years, feeding your bird (on which all worst curses light!) with
my liver?

_Zeus_. 'Tis not a tithe of your deserts.

_Prom_. Consider, I do not ask you to release me for nothing. I offer
you information which is invaluable.

_Zeus_. Promethean wiles!

_Prom_. Wiles? to what end? you can find the Caucasus another time; and
there are chains to be had, if you catch me cheating.

_Zeus_. Tell me first the nature of your 'invaluable' offer.

_Prom_. If I tell you your present errand right, will that convince you
that I can prophesy too?

_Zeus_. Of course it will.

_Prom_. You are bound on a little visit to Thetis.

_Zeus_. Right so far. And the sequel? I trust you now.

_Prom_. Have no dealings with her, Zeus. As sure as Nereus's daughter
conceives by you, your child shall mete you the measure you meted to—

_Zeus_. I shall lose my kingdom, you would say?

_Prom_. Avert it, Fate! I say only, that union portends this issue.

_Zeus_. Thetis, farewell! and for this Hephaestus shall set you free.

H.

II

_Eros. Zeus_

_Eros_. You might let me off, Zeus! I suppose it _was_ rather too bad
of me; but there!—I am but a child; a wayward child.

_Zeus_. A child, and born before Iapetus was ever thought of? You bad
old man! Just because you have no beard, and no white hairs, are you
going to pass yourself off for a child?

_Eros_. Well, and what such mighty harm has the old man ever done you,
that you should talk of chains?

_Zeus_. Ask your own guilty conscience, what harm. The pranks you have
played me! Satyr, bull, swan, eagle, shower of gold,—I have been
everything in my time; and I have you to thank for it. You never by any
chance make the women in love with _me_; no one is ever smitten with
_my_ charms, that I have noticed. No, there must be magic in it always;
I must be kept well out of sight. They like the bull or the swan well
enough: but once let them set eyes on _me_, and they are frightened out
of their lives.

_Eros_. Well, of course. They are but mortals; the sight of Zeus is too
much for them.

_Zeus_. Then why are Branchus and Hyacinth so fond of Apollo?

_Eros_. Daphne ran away from him, anyhow; in spite of his beautiful
hair and his smooth chin. Now, shall I tell you the way to win hearts?
Keep that aegis of yours quiet, and leave the thunderbolt at home; make
yourself as smart as you can; curl your hair and tie it up with a bit
of ribbon, get a purple cloak, and gold-bespangled shoes, and march
forth to the music of flute and drum;—and see if you don't get a finer
following than Dionysus, for all his Maenads.

_Zeus_. Pooh! I'll win no hearts on such terms.

_Eros_. Oh, in that case, don't fall in love. Nothing could be simpler.

_Zeus_. I dare say; but I like being in love, only I don't like all
this fuss. Now mind; if I let you off, it is on this understanding.

F.

III

_Zeus. Hermes_

_Zeus_. Hermes, you know Inachus's beautiful daughter?

_Her_. I do. Io, you mean?

_Zeus_. Yes; she is not a girl now, but a heifer.

_Her_. Magic at work! how did that come about?

_Zeus_. Hera had a jealous fit, and transformed her. But that is not
all; she has thought of a new punishment for the poor thing. She has
put a cowherd in charge, who is all over eyes; this Argus, as he is
called, pastures the heifer, and never goes to sleep.

_Her_. Well, what am I to do?

_Zeus_. Fly down to Nemea, where the pasture is, kill Argus, take Io
across the sea to Egypt, and convert her into Isis. She shall be
henceforth an Egyptian Goddess, flood the Nile, regulate the winds, and
rescue mariners.

H.

VI

_Hera. Zeus_

_Hera_. Zeus! What is your opinion of this man Ixion?

_Zeus_. Why, my dear, I think he is a very good sort of man; and the
best of company. Indeed, if he were unworthy of our company, he would
not be here.

_Hera_. He _is_ unworthy! He is a villain! Discard him!

_Zeus_. Eh? What has he been after? I must know about this.

_Hera_. Certainly you must; though I scarce know how to tell you. The
wretch!

_Zeus_. Oh, oh; if he is a 'wretch,' you must certainly tell me all
about it. I know what 'wretch' means, on your discreet tongue. What, he
has been making love?

_Hera_. And to me! to me of all people! It has been going on for a long
time. At first, when he would keep looking at me, I had no idea—. And
then he would sigh and groan; and when I handed my cup to Ganymede
after drinking, he would insist on having it, and would stop drinking
to kiss it, and lift it up to his eyes; and then he would look at me
again. And then of course I knew. For a long time I didn't like to say
anything to you; I thought his mad fit would pass. But when he actually
dared to _speak_ to me, I left him weeping and groveling about, and
stopped my ears, so that I might not hear his impertinences, and came
to tell you. It is for you to consider what steps you will take.

_Zeus_. Whew! I have a rival, I find; and with my own lawful wife. Here
is a rascal who has tippled nectar to some purpose. Well, we have no
one but ourselves to blame for it: we make too much of these mortals,
admitting them to our table like this. When they drink of our nectar,
and behold the beauties of Heaven (so different from those of Earth!),
'tis no wonder if they fall in love, and form ambitious schemes! Yes,
Love is all-powerful; and not with mortals only: we Gods have sometimes
fallen beneath his sway.

_Hera_. He has made himself master of _you_; no doubt of that. He does
what he likes with you;—leads you by the nose. You follow him whither
he chooses, and assume every shape at his command; you are his chattel,
his toy. I know how it will be: you are going to let Ixion off, because
you have had relations with his wife; she is the mother of Pirithous.

_Zeus_. Why, what a memory you have for these little outings of
mine!—Now, my idea about Ixion is this. It would never do to punish
him, or to exclude him from our table; that would not look well. No; as
he is so fond of you, so hard hit—even to weeping point, you tell me,—

_Hera_. Zeus! What _are_ you going to say?

_Zeus_. Don't be alarmed. Let us make a cloud-phantom in your likeness,
and after dinner, as he lies awake (which of course he will do, being
in love), let us take it and lay it by his side. 'Twill put him out of
his pain: he will fancy he has attained his desire.

_Hera_. Never! The presumptuous villain!

_Zeus_. Yes, I know. But what harm can it do to you, if Ixion makes a
conquest of a cloud?

_Hera_. But he will think that _I_ am the cloud; he will be working his
wicked will upon _me_ for all he can tell.

_Zeus_. Now you are talking nonsense. The cloud is not Hera, and Hera
is not the cloud. Ixion will be deceived; that is all.

_Hera_. Yes, but these men are all alike—they have no delicacy. I
suppose, when he goes home, he will boast to every one of how he has
enjoyed the embraces of Hera, the wife of Zeus! Why, he may tell them
that _I_ am in love with _him_! And they will believe it; _they_ will
know nothing about the cloud.

_Zeus_. If he says anything of the kind he shall soon find himself in
Hades, spinning round on a wheel for all eternity. That will keep him
busy! And serve him right; not for falling in love—I see no great harm
in that—but for letting his tongue wag.

F.

VII

_Hephaestus. Apollo_

_Heph_. Have you seen Maia's baby, Apollo? such a pretty little thing,
with a smile for everybody; you can see it is going to be a treasure.

_Ap_. That baby a treasure? well, in mischief, Iapetus is young beside
it.

_Heph_. Why, what harm can it do, only just born?

_Ap_. Ask Posidon; it stole his trident. Ask Ares; he was surprised to
find his sword gone out of the scabbard. Not to mention myself,
disarmed of bow and arrows.

_Heph_. Never! that infant? he has hardly found his legs yet; he is not
out of his baby-linen.

_Ap_. Ah, you will find out, Hephaestus, if he gets within reach of
you.

_Heph_. He has been.

_Ap_. Well? all your tools safe? none missing?

_Heph_. Of course not.

_Ap_. I advise you to make sure.

_Heph_. Zeus! where are my pincers?

_Ap_. Ah, you will find them among the baby-linen.

_Heph_. So light-fingered? one would swear he had practised petty
larceny in the womb.

_Ap_. Ah, and you don't know what a glib young chatterbox he is; and,
if he has his way, he is to be our errand-boy! Yesterday he challenged
Eros—tripped up his heels somehow, and had him on his back in a
twinkling; before the applause was over, he had taken the opportunity
of a congratulatory hug from Aphrodite to steal her girdle; Zeus had
not done laughing before—the sceptre was gone. If the thunderbolt had
not been too heavy, and very hot, he would have made away with that
too.

_Heph_. The child has some spirit in him, by your account.

_Ap_. Spirit, yes—and some music, moreover, young as he is.

_Heph_. How can you tell that?

_Ap_. He picked up a dead tortoise somewhere or other, and contrived an
instrument with it. He fitted horns to it, with a cross-bar, stuck in
pegs, inserted a bridge, and played a sweet tuneful thing that made an
old harper like me quite envious. Even at night, Maia was saying, he
does not stay in Heaven; he goes down poking his nose into Hades—on a
thieves' errand, no doubt. Then he has a pair of wings, and he has made
himself a magic wand, which he uses for marshalling souls—convoying the
dead to their place.

_Heph_. Ah, I gave him that, for a toy.

_Ap_. And by way of payment he stole—

_Heph_. Well thought on; I must go and get them; you may be right about
the baby-linen.

H.


VIII _Hephaestus. Zeus_

_Heph_. What are your orders, Zeus? You sent for me, and here I am;
with such an edge to my axe as would cleave a stone at one blow.

_Zeus_. Ah; that's right, Hephaestus. Just split my head in half, will
you?

_Heph_. You think I am mad, perhaps?—Seriously, now, what can I do for
you?

_Zeus_. What I say: crack my skull. Any insubordination, now, and you
shall taste my resentment; it will not be the first time. Come, a good
lusty stroke, and quick about it. I am in the pangs of travail; my
brain is in a whirl.

_Heph_. Mind you, the consequences may be serious: the axe is sharp,
and will prove but a rough midwife.

_Zeus_. Hew away, and fear nothing. I know what I am about.

_Heph_. H'm. I don't like it: however, one must obey orders…. Why, what
have we here? A maiden in full armour! This is no joke, Zeus. You might
well be waspish, with this great girl growing up beneath your _pia
mater_; in armour, too! You have been carrying a regular barracks on
your shoulders all this time. So active too! See, she is dancing a
war-dance, with shield and spear in full swing. She is like one
inspired; and (what is more to the point) she is extremely pretty, and
has come to marriageable years in these few minutes; those grey eyes,
even, look well beneath a helmet. Zeus, I claim her as the fee for my
midwifery.

_Zeus_. Impossible! She is determined to remain a maid for ever. Not
that _I_ have any objection, personally.

_Heph_. That is all I want. You can leave the rest to me. I'll carry
her off this moment.

_Zeus_. Well, if you think it so easy. But I am sure it is a hopeless
case.

F.

XI

_Aphrodite. Selene_

_Aph_. What is this I hear about you, Selene? When your car is over
Caria, you stop it to gaze at Endymion sleeping hunter-fashion in the
open; sometimes, they tell me, you actually get out and go down to him.

_Sel_. Ah, Aphrodite, ask that son of yours; it is he must answer for
it all.

_Aph_. Well now, what a naughty boy! he gets his own mother into all
sorts of scrapes; I must go down, now to Ida for Anchises of Troy, now
to Lebanon for my Assyrian stripling;—mine? no, he put Persephone in
love with him too, and so robbed me of half my darling. I have told him
many a time that if he would not behave himself I would break his
artillery for him, and clip his wings; and before now I have smacked
his little behind with my slipper. It is no use; he is frightened and
cries for a minute or two, and then forgets all about it. But tell me,
is Endymion handsome? That is always a comfort in our humiliation.

_Sel_. _Most_ handsome, _I_ think, my dear; you should see him when he
has spread out his cloak on the rock and is asleep; his javelins in his
left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards,
making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless
slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake
and startle him—but there, you know all about it; why tell you the
rest? I am dying of love, that is all.

H.

XII

_Aphrodite. Eros_

_Aph_. Child, child, you must think what you are doing. It is bad
enough on earth,—you are always inciting men to do some mischief, to
themselves or to one another;—but I am speaking of the Gods. You change
Zeus into shape after shape as the fancy takes you; you make Selene
come down from the sky; you keep Helius loitering about with Clymene,
till he sometimes forgets to drive out at all. As for the naughty
tricks you play on your own mother, you know you are safe there. But
Rhea! how could you _dare_ to set her on thinking of that young fellow
in Phrygia, an old lady like her, the mother of so many Gods? Why, you
have made her quite mad: she harnesses those lions of hers, and drives
about all over Ida with the Corybantes, who are as mad as herself,
shrieking high and low for Attis; and there they are, slashing their
arms with swords, rushing about over the hills, like wild things, with
dishevelled hair, blowing horns, beating drums, clashing cymbals; all
Ida is one mad tumult. I am quite uneasy about it; yes, you wicked boy,
your poor mother is quite uneasy: some day when Rhea is in one of her
mad fits (or when she is in her senses, more likely), she will send the
Corybantes after you, with orders to tear you to pieces, or throw you
to the lions. You are so venturesome!

_Eros_. Be under no alarm, mother; I understand lions perfectly by this
time. I get on to their backs every now and then, and take hold of
their manes, and ride them about; and when I put my hand into their
mouths, they only lick it, and let me take it out again. Besides, how
is Rhea going to have time to attend to me? She is too busy with Attis.
And I see no harm in just pointing out beautiful things to people; they
can leave them alone;—it is nothing to do with me. And how would you
like it if Ares were not in love with you, or you with him?

_Aph_. Masterful boy! always the last word! But you will remember this
some day.

F.

XIII

_Zeus. Asclepius. Heracles_

_Zeus_. Now, Asclepius and Heracles, stop that quarrelling; you might
as well be men; such behaviour is very improper and out of place at the
table of the Gods.

_Her_. Is this druggist fellow to have a place above me, Zeus?

_Asc_. Of course I am; I am your better.

_Her_. Why, you numskull? because it was Zeus's bolt that cracked your
skull, for your unholy doings, and now you have been allowed your
immortality again out of sheer pity?

_Asc_. You twit me with my fiery end; you seem to have forgotten that
you too were burnt to death, on Oeta.

_Her_. Was there no difference between your life and mine, then? I am
Zeus's son, and it is well known how I toiled, cleansing the earth,
conquering monsters, and chastising men of violence. Whereas you are a
root-grubber and a quack; I dare say you have your use for doctoring
sick men, but you never did a bold deed in your life.

_Asc_. That comes well from you, whose burns I healed, when you came up
all singed not so long ago; between the tunic and the flames, your body
was half consumed. Anyhow, it would be enough to mention that I was
never a slave like you, never combed wool in Lydia, masquerading in a
purple shawl and being slippered by an Omphale, never killed my wife
and children in a fit of the spleen.

_Her._ If you don't stop being rude, I shall soon show you that
immortality is not much good. I will take you up and pitch you head
over heels out of Heaven, and Apollo himself shall never mend your
broken crown.

_Zeus._ Cease, I say, and let us hear ourselves speak, or I will send
you both away from table. Heracles, Asclepius died before you, and has
the right to a better place.

H.

XIV

_Hermes. Apollo_

_Her_. Why so sad, Apollo?

_Ap_. Alas, Hermes,—my love!

_Her_. Oh; that's bad. What, are you still brooding over that affair of
Daphne?

_Ap_. No. I grieve for my beloved; the Laconian, the son of Oebalus.

_Her_. Hyacinth? he is not dead?

_Ap_. Dead.

_Her_. Who killed him? Who could have the heart? That lovely boy!

_Ap_. It was the work of my own hand.

_Her_. You must have been mad!

_Ap_. Not mad; it was an accident.

_Her_. Oh? and how did it happen?

_Ap_. He was learning to throw the quoit, and I was throwing with him.
I had just sent my quoit up into the air as usual, when jealous Zephyr
(damned be he above all winds! he had long been in love with Hyacinth,
though Hyacinth would have nothing to say to him)—Zephyr came
blustering down from Taygetus, and dashed the quoit upon the child's
head; blood flowed from the wound in streams, and in one moment all was
over. My first thought was of revenge; I lodged an arrow in Zephyr, and
pursued his flight to the mountain. As for the child, I buried him at
Amyclae, on the fatal spot; and from his blood I have caused a flower
to spring up, sweetest, fairest of flowers, inscribed with letters of
woe.—Is my grief unreasonable?

_Her_. It is, Apollo. You knew that you had set your heart upon a
mortal: grieve not then for his mortality.

F.

XV

_Hermes. Apollo_

_Her_. To think that a cripple and a blacksmith like him should marry
two such queens of beauty as Aphrodite and Charis!

_Ap_. Luck, Hermes—that is all. But I do wonder at their putting up
with his company; they see him running with sweat, bent over the forge,
all sooty-faced; and yet they cuddle and kiss him, and sleep with him!

_Her_. Yes, it makes me angry too; how I envy him! Ah, Apollo, you may
let your locks grow, and play your harp, and be proud of your looks; I
am a healthy fellow, and can touch the lyre; but, when it comes to
bedtime, we lie alone.

_Ap_. Well, my loves never prosper; Daphne and Hyacinth were my great
passions; she so detested me that being turned to a tree was more
attractive than I; and him I killed with a quoit. Nothing is left me of
them but wreaths of their leaves and flowers.

_Her_. Ah, once, once, I and Aphrodite—but no; no boasting.

_Ap_. I know; that is how Hermaphroditus is accounted for. But perhaps
you can tell me how it is that Aphrodite and Charis are not jealous of
one another.

_Her_. Because one is his wife in Lemnus and the other in Heaven.
Besides, Aphrodite cares most about Ares; he is her real love; so she
does not trouble her head about the blacksmith.

_Ap_. Do you think Hephaestus sees?

_Her_. Oh, he sees, yes; but what can he do? he knows what a martial
young fellow it is; so he holds his tongue. He talks of inventing a
net, though, to take them in the act with.

_Ap_. Ah, all I know is, I would not mind being taken in that act.

H.

XVI

_Hera. Leto_

_Hera_. I must congratulate you, madam, on the children with whom you
have presented Zeus.

_Leto_. Ah, mad

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