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The Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03

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Title: The Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03

Author: of Samosata Lucian

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


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6829]
                Most recently updated: January 26, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6829

Credits: Produced by Robert Nield, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA — VOLUME 03 ***




THE WORKS OF LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA


Complete with exceptions specified in the preface

TRANSLATED BY

H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER

VOLUME III

OF 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.—_Sartor 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_.




CONTENTS OF VOL. III


LIFE OF DEMONAX

A PORTRAIT-STUDY

DEFENCE OF THE ‘PORTRAIT-STUDY’

TOXARIS: A DIALOGUE OF FRIENDSHIP

ZEUS CROSS-EXAMINED

ZEUS TRAGOEDUS

THE COCK

ICAROMENIPPUS, AN AERIAL EXPEDITION

THE DOUBLE INDICTMENT

THE PARASITE, A DEMONSTRATION THAT SPONGING IS A PROFESSION

ANACHARSIS, A DISCUSSION OF PHYSICAL TRAINING

OF MOURNING

THE RHETORICIAN’S VADE MECUM

THE LIAR

DIONYSUS, AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

HERACLES, AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

SWANS AND AMBER

THE FLY, AN APPRECIATION

REMARKS ADDRESSED TO AN ILLITERATE BOOK-FANCIER

ALPHABETICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS




LIFE OF DEMONAX


It was in the book of Fate that even this age of ours should not be
destitute entirely of noteworthy and memorable men, but produce a
body of extraordinary power, and a mind of surpassing wisdom. My
allusions are to Sostratus the Boeotian, whom the Greeks called,
and believed to be, Heracles; and more particularly to the
philosopher Demonax. I saw and marvelled at both of them, and with
the latter I long consorted. I have written of Sostratus elsewhere
[Footnote: The life of Sostratus is not extant.], and described his
stature and enormous strength, his open-air life on Parnassus,
sleeping on the grass and eating what the mountain afforded, the
exploits that bore out his surname—robbers exterminated, rough
places made smooth, and deep waters bridged.

This time I am to write of Demonax, with two sufficient ends in
view: first, to keep his memory green among good men, as far as in
me lies; and secondly, to provide the most earnest of our rising
generation, who aspire to philosophy, with a contemporary pattern,
that they may not be forced back upon the ancients for worthy
models, but imitate this best—if I am any judge—of all
philosophers.

He came of a Cyprian family which enjoyed considerable property and
political influence. But his views soared above such things as
these; he claimed nothing less than the highest, and devoted
himself to philosophy. This was not due to any exhortations of
Agathobulus, his predecessor Demetrius, or Epictetus. He did indeed
enjoy the converse of all these, as well as of Timocrates of
Heraclea, that wise man whose gifts of expression and of
understanding were equal. It was not, however, to the exhortations
of any of these, but to a natural impulse towards the good, an
innate yearning for philosophy which manifested itself in childish
years, that he owed his superiority to all the things that ordinary
men pursue. He took independence and candour for his guiding
principles, lived himself an upright, wholesome, irreproachable
life, and exhibited to all who saw or heard him the model of his
own disposition and philosophic sincerity.

He was no half-baked enthusiast either; he had lived with the
poets, and knew most of them by heart; he was a practised speaker;
he had a knowledge of philosophic principles not of the superficial
skin-deep order; he had developed and hardened his body by exercise
and toil, and, in short, had been at the pains to make himself
every man’s equal at every point. He was consistent enough, when he
found that he could no longer suffice to himself, to depart
voluntarily from life, leaving a great reputation behind him among
the true nobility of Greece.

Instead of confining himself to a single philosophic school, he
laid them all under contribution, without showing clearly which of
them he preferred; but perhaps he was nearest akin to Socrates;
for, though he had leanings as regards externals and plain living
to Diogenes, he never studied effect or lived for the applause and
admiration of the multitude; his ways were like other people’s; he
mounted no high horse; he was just a man and a citizen. He indulged
in no Socratic irony; but his discourse was full of Attic grace;
those who heard it went away neither disgusted by servility nor
repelled by ill-tempered censure, but on the contrary lifted out of
themselves by charity, and encouraged to more orderly, contented,
hopeful lives.

He was never known to shout or be over vehement or angry, even when
he had to correct; he touched offences, but pardoned offenders,
saying that the doctors’ was the right model, who treat sickness
but are not angry with the sick. It is human, he thought, to err,
but divine (whether in God or man) to put the error right.

A life of this sort left him without wants of his own; but he was
always ready to render any proper service to his friends—including
reminders to those among them who passed for fortunate, how brief
was their tenure of what they so prided themselves upon. To all, on
the other hand, who repined at poverty, resented exile, or
complained of old age or bad health, he administered laughing
consolation, and bade them not forget how soon their troubles would
be over, the distinction between good and bad be obsolete, and long
freedom succeed to short-lived distress.

He was fond of playing peace-maker between brothers at variance, or
presiding over the restoration of marital harmony. He could say a
word in season, too, before an agitated political assembly, which
would turn the scale in favour of patriotic duty. Such was the
temper that philosophy produced in him, kindly, mild, and cheerful.

Nothing ever grieved him except the illness or death of a friend,
friendship being the one among blessings that he put highest; and
indeed he was every man’s friend, counting among his kindred
whatever had human shape. Not that there were no degrees in the
pleasure different people’s society gave him; but he avoided none,
except those who seemed so far astray that they could get no good
from him. And every word or act in which these principles took
shape might have been dictated by the Graces and Aphrodite; for ‘on
his lips Persuasion sat,’ as the play has it.

Accordingly he was regarded with reverence at Athens, both by the
collective assembly and by the officials; he always continued to be
a person of great consequence in their eyes. And this though most
of them had been at first offended with him, and hated him as
heartily as their ancestors had Socrates. Besides his candour and
independence, there had been found Anytuses and Meletuses to repeat
the historic charges: _he had never been known to sacrifice, and
he made himself singular by avoiding initiation at Eleusis_. On
this occasion he showed his courage by appearing in a garland and
festal attire, and then pleading his cause before the people with a
dash of unwonted asperity infused into his ordinary moderate tone.
On the count of never having sacrificed to Athene, ‘Men of Athens,’
he said, ‘there is nothing wonderful in this; it was only that I
gave the Goddess credit for being able to do very well without
sacrifices from me.’ And in the matter of the Mysteries, his reason
for not following the usual practice was this: if the Mysteries
turned out to be bad, he would never be able to keep quiet about it
to the uninitiated, but must dissuade them from the ceremony;
while, if they were good, humanity would tempt him to divulge them.
The Athenians, stone in hand already, were at once disarmed, and
from that time onwards paid him honour and respect, which
ultimately rose to reverence. Yet he had opened his case with a
bitter enough reproof: ‘Men of Athens, you see me ready garlanded;
proceed to sacrifice me, then; your former offering [Footnote:
i.e., Socrates.] was deficient in this formality.’

I will now give some specimens of his pointed and witty sayings,
which may begin with his answers to Favorinus. The latter had heard
that he made fun of his lectures, and in particular of the
sentimental verses with which they were garnished, and which
Demonax thought contemptible, womanish, and quite unsuited to
philosophy. So he came and asked him: ‘Who, pray, are you, that you
should pour scorn upon me?’ ‘I am the possessor of a critical pair
of ears,’ was the answer. The sophist had not had enough;
‘_You_ are no infant,’ he went on, ‘but a philosopher, it
seems; may one ask what marks the transformation?’ ‘The marks of
manhood,’ said Demonax.

Another time the same person came up and asked him what school of
philosophy he belonged to. ‘Who told you I was a philosopher?’ was
all he said. But as he left him, he had a good laugh to himself,
which Favorinus observing, demanded what he was laughing at; ‘I was
only amused by your taking a man for a philosopher because he wears
a beard, when you have none yourself.’

When Sidonius, who had a great reputation at Athens as a teacher,
was boasting that he was conversant with all the philosophic
systems—but I had better quote his words. ‘Let Aristotle call, and
I follow to the Lyceum; Plato, and I hurry to the Academy; Zeno,
and I make my home in the Porch; Pythagoras, and I keep the rule of
silence.’ Then rose Demonax from among the audience: ‘Sidonius,
Pythagoras calls.’

A pretty girlish young man called Python, son of some Macedonian
grandee, once by way of quizzing him asked a riddling question and
invited him to show his acumen over it. ‘I only see one thing, dear
child,’ he said, ‘and that is, that you are a _fair_ logician.’
The other lost his temper at this equivoque, and threatened him:
‘You shall see in a minute what a man can do.’ ‘Oh, you keep a man,
do you?’ was Demonax’s smiling retort.

He once, for daring to laugh at an athlete who displayed himself in
gay clothes because he had won an Olympic victory, received a blow
on the head with a stone, which drew blood. The bystanders were all
as angry as if they had themselves been the victims, and set up a
shout—‘The Proconsul! the Proconsul!’ ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said
Demonax, ‘but I should prefer the doctor.’

He once picked up a little gold charm in the road as he walked, and
posted a notice in the market-place stating that the loser could
recover his property, if he would call upon Demonax and give
particulars of the weight, material, and workmanship. A handsome
young exquisite came, professing to have lost it. The philosopher
soon saw that it was a got-up story; ‘Ah, my boy,’ he said, ‘you
will do very well, if you lose your other charms as little as you
have lost this one.’

A Roman senator at Athens once presented his son, who had great
beauty of a soft womanish type. ‘My son salutes you, sir,’ he said.
To which Demonax answered, ‘A pretty lad, worthy of his father, and
extremely like his mother.’

A cynic who emphasized his principles by wearing a bear’s skin he
insisted on addressing not by his name of Honoratus, but as Bruin.

Asked for a definition of Happiness, he said that only the free was
happy. ‘Well,’ said the questioner, ‘there is no lack of free
men.’—‘I count no man free who is subject to hopes and fears.’—
‘You ask impossibilities; of these two we are all very much the
slaves.’ ‘Once grasp the nature of human affairs,’ said Demonax,
‘and you will find that they justify neither hope nor fear, since
both pain and pleasure are to have an end.’

Peregrine Proteus was shocked at his taking things so lightly, and
treating mankind as a subject for humour: ‘You have no teeth,
Demonax.’ ‘And you, Peregrine, have no bowels.’

A physical philosopher was discoursing about the antipodes; Demonax
took his hand, and led him to a well, in which he showed him his
own reflection: ‘Do you want us to believe that the antipodes are
like _that_?’

A man once boasted that he was a wizard, and possessed of mighty
charms whereby he could get what he chose out of anybody. ‘Will it
surprise you to learn that I am a fellow-craftsman?’ asked Demonax;
‘pray come with me to the baker’s, and you shall see a single
charm, just one wave of my magic wand, induce him to bestow several
loaves upon me.’ Current coin, he meant, is as good a magician as
most.

The great Herodes, mourning the untimely death of Pollux, used to
have the carriage and horses got ready, and the place laid at
table, as though the dead were going to drive and eat. To him came
Demonax, saying that he brought a message from Pollux. Herodes,
delighted with the idea that Demonax was humouring his whim like
other people, asked what it was that Pollux required of him. ‘He
cannot think why you are so long coming to him.’

When another person kept himself shut up in the dark, mourning his
son, Demonax represented himself to him as a magician: he would
call up the son’s ghost, the only condition being that he should be
given the names of three people who had never had to mourn. The
father hum’d and ha’d, unable, doubtless, to produce any such
person, till Demonax broke in: ‘And have you, then, a monopoly of
the unendurable, when you cannot name a man who has not some grief
to endure?’

He often ridiculed the people who use obsolete and uncommon words
in their lectures. One of these produced a bit of Attic purism in
answer to some question he had put. ‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘the
date of my question is to-day; that of your answer is _temp_.
_Bell_. _Troj_.’

A friend asking him to come to the temple of Asclepius, there to
make prayer for his son, ‘Poor deaf Asclepius!’ he exclaimed; ‘can
he not hear at this distance?’

He once saw two philosophers engaged in a very unedifying game of
cross questions and crooked answers. ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘here is
one man milking a billy-goat, and another catching the proceeds in
a sieve.’

When Agathocles the Peripatetic vaunted himself as the first and
only dialectician, he asked him how he could be the first, if he
was the only, or the only, if he was the first.

The consular Cethegus, on his way to serve under his father in
Asia, said and did many foolish things. A friend describing him as
a great ass, ‘Not even a _great_ ass,’ said Demonax.

When Apollonius was appointed professor of philosophy in the
Imperial household, Demonax witnessed his departure, attended by a
great number of his pupils. ‘Why, here is Apollonius with all his
Argonauts,’ he cried.

Asked whether he held the soul to be immortal, ‘Dear me, yes,’ he
said; ‘everything is.’

He remarked a propos of Herodes that Plato was quite right about
our having more than one soul; the same soul could not possibly
compose those splendid declamations, and have places laid for
Regilla and Pollux after their death.

He was once bold enough to ask the assembled people, when he heard
the sacred proclamation, why they excluded barbarians from the
Mysteries, seeing that Eumolpus, the founder of them, was a
barbarian from Thrace.

When he once had a winter voyage to make, a friend asked how he
liked the thought of being capsized and becoming food for fishes.
‘I should be very unreasonable to mind giving them a meal,
considering how many they have given me.’

To a rhetorician who had given a very poor declamation he
recommended constant practice. ‘Why, I am always practising to
myself,’ says the man. ‘Ah, that accounts for it; you are
accustomed to such a foolish audience.’

Observing a soothsayer one day officiating for pay, he said: ‘I
cannot see how you can ask pay. If it is because you can change the
course of Fate, you cannot possibly put the figure high enough: if
everything is settled by Heaven, and not by you, what is the good
of your soothsaying?’

A hale old Roman once gave him a little exhibition of his skill in
fence, taking a clothes-peg for his mark. ‘What do you think of my
play, Demonax?’ he said. ‘Excellent, so long as you have a wooden
man to play with.’

Even for questions meant to be insoluble he generally had a shrewd
answer at command. Some one tried to make a fool of him by asking,
If I burn a hundred pounds of wood, how many pounds of smoke shall
I get? ‘Weigh the ashes; the difference is all smoke.’

One Polybius, an uneducated man whose grammar was very defective,
once informed him that he had received Roman citizenship from the
Emperor. ‘Why did he not make you a Greek instead?’ asked Demonax.

Seeing a decorated person very proud of his broad stripe, he
whispered in his ear, while he took hold of and drew attention to
the cloth, ‘This attire did not make its original wearer anything
but a sheep.’

Once at the bath the water was at boiling point, and some one
called him a coward for hesitating to get in. ‘What,’ said he, ‘is
my country expecting me to do my duty?’

Some one asked him what he took the next world to be like. ‘Wait a
bit, and I will send you the information.’

A minor poet called Admetus told him he had inserted a clause in
his will for the inscribing on his tomb of a monostich, which I
will give:

  Admetus’ husk earth holds, and Heaven himself.

‘What a beautiful epitaph, Admetus!’ said Demonax, ‘and what a pity
it is not up yet!’

The shrunk shanks of old age are a commonplace; but when his
reached this state, some one asked him what was the matter with
them. ‘Ah,’ he said with a smile, ‘Charon has been having a bite at
them.’

He interrupted a Spartan who was scourging his servant with, ‘Why
confer on your slave the privilege of Spartans [Footnote: See
_Spartans_ in Notes.] like yourself?’ He observed to one Danae,
who was bringing a suit against her brother, ‘Have the law of him
by all means; it was another Danae whose father was called the
Lawless. [Footnote: See _Danae_ in Notes.]

He waged constant warfare against all whose philosophy was not
practical, but for show. So when he saw a cynic, with threadbare
cloak and wallet, but a braying-pestle instead of a staff,
proclaiming himself loudly as a follower of Antisthenes, Crates,
and Diogenes, he said: ‘Tell us no lies; your master is the
professor of braying.’

Noticing how foul play was growing among the athletes, who often
supplemented the resources of boxing and wrestling with their
teeth, he said it was no wonder that the champions’ partisans had
taken to describing them as lions.

There was both wit and sting in what he said to the proconsul. The
latter was one of the people who take all the hair off their bodies
with pitch-plaster. A cynic mounted a block of stone and cast this
practice in his teeth, suggesting that it was for immoral purposes.
The proconsul in a rage had the man pulled down, and was on the
point of condemning him to be beaten or banished, when Demonax, who
was present, pleaded for him on the ground that he was only
exercising the traditional cynic licence. ‘Well,’ said the
proconsul, ‘I pardon him this time at your request; but if he
offends again, what shall I do to him?’ ‘Have him depilated,’ said
Demonax.

Another person, entrusted by the Emperor with the command of
legions and the charge of a great province, asked him what was the
way to govern well. ‘Keep your temper, say little, and hear much.’

Asked whether he ate honey-cakes, ‘Do you suppose,’ he said, ‘that
bees only make honey for fools?’

Noticing near the Poecile a statue minus a hand, he said it had
taken Athens a long time to get up a bronze to Cynaegirus.

Alluding to the lame Cyprian Rufinus, who was a Peripatetic and
spent much time in the Lyceum walks, ‘What presumption,’ he
exclaimed, ‘for a cripple to call himself a Walking Philosopher!’

Epictetus once urged him, with a touch of reproof, to take a wife
and raise a family—for it beseemed a philosopher to leave some one
to represent him after the flesh. But he received the home thrust:
‘Very well, Epictetus; give me one of your daughters.’

His remark to Herminus the Aristotelian is equally worth recording.
He was aware that this man’s character was vile and his misdeeds
innumerable, and yet his mouth was always full of Aristotle and his
ten predicaments. ‘Certainly, Herminus,’ he said, ‘no predicament
is too bad for you.’

When the Athenians were thinking, in their rivalry with Corinth, of
starting gladiatorial shows, he came forward and said: ‘Men of
Athens, before you pass this motion, do not forget to destroy the
altar of Pity.’

On the occasion of his visiting Olympia, the Eleans voted a bronze
statue to him. But he remonstrated: ‘It will imply a reproach to
your ancestors, men of Elis, who set up no statue to Socrates or
Diogenes.’

I once heard him observe to a learned lawyer that laws were not of
much use, whether meant for the good or for the bad; the first do
not need them, and upon the second they have no effect.

There was one line of Homer always on his tongue:

  Idle or busy, death takes all alike.

He had a good word for Thersites, as a cynic and a leveller.

Asked which of the philosophers was most to his taste, he said: ‘I
admire them all; Socrates I revere, Diogenes I admire, Aristippus I
love.’

He lived to nearly a hundred, free from disease and pain, burdening
no man, asking no man’s favour, serving his friends, and having no
enemies. Not Athens only, but all Greece was so in love with him
that as he passed the great would give him place and there would be
a general hush. Towards the end of his long life he would go
uninvited into the first house that offered, and there get his
dinner and his bed, the household regarding it as the visit of some
heavenly being which brought them a blessing. When they saw him go
by, the baker-wives would contend for the honour of supplying him,
and a happy woman was the actual donor. Children too used to call
him father, and bring him offerings of fruit.

Party spirit was once running high at Athens; he came into the
assembly, and his mere appearance was enough to still the storm.
When he saw that they were ashamed, he departed again without
having uttered a word.

When he found that he was no longer able to take care of himself,
he repeated to his friends the tag with which the heralds close the
festival:

  The games are done,
  The crowns all won;
  No more delay,
  But haste away,

and from that moment abstaining from food, left life as cheerfully
as he had lived it.

When the end was near, he was asked his wishes about burial. ‘Oh,
do not trouble; scent will summon my undertakers.’ Well, but it
would be indecent for the body of so great a man to feed birds and
dogs. ‘Oh, no harm in making oneself useful in death to anything
that lives.’

However, the Athenians gave him a magnificent public funeral, long
lamented him, worshipped and garlanded the stone seat on which he
had been wont to rest when tired, accounting the mere stone
sanctified by him who had sat upon it. No one would miss the
funeral ceremony, least of all any of the philosophers. It was
these who bore him to the grave.

I have made but a small selection of the material available; but it
may serve to give readers some idea of this great man’s character.




A PORTRAIT-STUDY

_Lycinus. Polystratus_


_Ly_. Polystratus, I know now what men must have felt like
when they saw the Gorgon’s head. I have just experienced the same
sensation, at the sight of a most lovely woman. A little more, and
I should have realized the legend, by being turned to stone; I am
benumbed with admiration.

_Poly_. Wonderful indeed must have been the beauty, and
terrible the power of the woman who could produce such an
impression on Lycinus. Tell me of this petrifying Medusa. Who is
she, and whence? I would see her myself. You will not grudge me
that privilege? Your jealousy will not take alarm at the prospect
of a rival petrifaction at your side?

_Ly_. Well, I give you fair warning: one distant glimpse of
her, and you are speechless, motionless as any statue. Nay, that is
a light affliction: the mortal wound is not dealt till _her_
glance has fallen on _you_. What can save you then? She will
lead you in chains, hither and thither, as the magnet draws the
steel.

_Poly_. Enough! You would make her more than human. And now
tell me who she is.

_Ly_. You think I am exaggerating: I fear you will have but a
poor opinion of my eloquence when you see her as she is—so far
above my praise. _Who_ she is, I cannot say: but to judge from
the splendour of her surroundings, her retinue, her host of eunuchs
and maids, she must be of no ordinary rank.

_Poly_. And you never even asked her name?

_Ly_. Why no; but she is from Ionia; because, as she passed, I
heard one of the bystanders speak aside to his neighbour: ‘See, he
exclaimed, ‘what Smyrna can produce! And what wonder, if the
fairest of Ionian cities has given birth to the fairest of women?’
I thought he must come from Smyrna himself, he was so proud of her.

_Poly_. There you acted your stony part to perfection. As you
could neither follow her, nor make inquiries of the Smyrnaean, it
only remains for you to describe her as best you can, on the chance
of my recognizing her.

_Ly_. You know not what you ask. It is not in the power of
words—certainly not of _my_ words—to portray such wondrous
beauty; scarcely could an Apelles, a Zeuxis, a Parrhasius,—a
Phidias or an Alcamenes, do justice to it; as for my flimsy
workmanship, it will but insult the original.

_Poly_. Well, never mind; what was she like? There can be no
harm in trying your hand. What if the portrait be somewhat out of
drawing?—the critic is your good friend.

_Ly_. I think my best way out of it will be to call in the aid
of some of the old masters I have named: let them fashion the
likeness for me.

_Poly_. Well, but—will they come? They have been dead so
long.

_Ly_. That is easily managed: but you must not mind answering
me a few questions.

_Poly_. You have but to ask.

_Ly_. Were you ever at Cnidus?

_Poly_. I was.

_Ly_. Then you have seen the _Aphrodite_, of course?

_Poly_. That masterpiece of Praxiteles’s art! I have.

_Ly_. And heard the story they tell there,—of the man who
fell in love with the statue, and contrived to get shut into the
temple alone, and there enjoyed such favours as a statue is able to
bestow.—But that is neither here nor there.—You have seen the
Cnidian _Aphrodite_, anyhow; now I want to know whether you
have also seen our own _Aphrodite of the Gardens_,—the Alcamenes.

_Poly_. I must be a dullard of dullards, if that most
exquisite of Alcamenes’s works had escaped my notice.

_Ly_. I forbear to ask whether in the course of your many
visits to the Acropolis you ever observed the _Sosandra_ of
Calamis. [Footnote: This statue is usually identified with one of
Aphrodite by the same sculptor, mentioned in Pausanias. Soteira
(‘saviour’) is known as an epithet of Aphrodite: but Sosandra
(‘man-saving’) is explained as a nickname of the particular statue,
in playful allusion to Callias, the donor, who was apparently
indebted to Aphrodite for his success with a certain Elpinice.]

_Poly_. Frequently.

_Ly_. That is really enough for my purpose. But I should just
like to know what you consider to be Phidias’s best work.

_Poly_. Can you ask?—The Lemnian _Athene_, which bears
the artist’s own signature; oh, and of course the _Amazon_
leaning on her spear.

_Ly_. I approve your judgement. We shall have no need of other
artists: I am now to cull from each of these its own peculiar
beauty, and combine all in a single portrait.

_Poly_. And how are you going to do that?

_Ly_. It is quite simple. All we have to do is to hand over
our several types to Reason, whose care it must be to unite them in
the most harmonious fashion, with due regard to the consistency, as
to the variety, of the result.

_Poly_. To be sure; let Reason take her materials and begin.
What will she make of it, I wonder? Will she contrive to put all
these different types together without their clashing?

_Ly_. Well, look; she is at work already. Observe her procedure.
She begins with our Cnidian importation, from which she takes only
the head; with the rest she is not concerned, as the statue is
nude. The hair, the forehead, the exquisite eyebrows, she will keep
as Praxiteles has rendered them; the eyes, too, those soft, yet
bright-glancing eyes, she leaves unaltered. But the cheeks and the
front of the face are taken from the ‘Garden’ Goddess; and so are
the lines of the hands, the shapely wrists, the delicately-tapering
fingers. Phidias and the Lemnian _Athene_ will give the outline of
the face, and the well-proportioned nose, and lend new softness to
the cheeks; and the same artist may shape her neck and closed lips,
to resemble those of his _Amazon_. Calamis adorns her with
Sosandra’s modesty, Sosandra’s grave half-smile; the decent seemly
dress is Sosandra’s too, save that the head must not be veiled. For
her stature, let it be that of Cnidian _Aphrodite_; once more we
have recourse to Praxiteles.—What think you, Polystratus? Is it a
lovely portrait?

_Poly_. Assuredly it will be, when it is perfected. At present, my
paragon of sculptors, one element of loveliness has escaped your
comprehensive grasp.

_Ly_. What is that?

_Poly_. A most important one. You will agree with me that
colour and tone have a good deal to do with beauty? that black
should _be_ black, white be white, and red play its blushing
part? It looks to me as if the most important thing of all were
still lacking.

_Ly_. Well, how shall we manage? Call in the painters, perhaps,
selecting those who were noted for their skill in mixing and laying
on their colours? Be it so: we will have Polygnotus, Euphranor of
course, Apelles and Aetion; they can divide the work between them.
Euphranor shall colour the hair like his _Hera’s_; Polygnotus the
comely brow and faintly blushing cheek, after his _Cassandra_ in
the Assembly-room at Delphi. Polygnotus shall also paint her
robe,—of the finest texture, part duly gathered in, but most of it
floating in the breeze. For the flesh-tints, which must be neither
too pale nor too high-coloured, Apelles shall copy his own
_Campaspe_. And lastly, Aetion shall give her _Roxana’s_ lips. Nay,
we can do better: have we not Homer, best of painters, though a
Euphranor and an Apelles be present? Let him colour all like the
limbs of Menelaus, which he says were ‘ivory tinged with red.’ He
too shall paint her calm ‘ox-eyes,’ and the Theban poet shall help
him to give them their ‘violet’ hue. Homer shall add her smile, her
white arms, her rosy finger-tips, and so complete the resemblance
to golden Aphrodite, to whom he has compared Brises’ daughter with
far less reason. So far we may trust our sculptors and painters and
poets: but for her crowning glory, for the grace—nay, the choir of
Graces and Loves that encircle her—who shall portray them?

_Poly_. This was no earthly vision, Lycinus; surely she must
have dropped from the clouds.—And what was she doing?

_Ly_. In her hands was an open scroll; half read (so I surmised)
and half to be read. As she passed, she was making some remark to
one of her company; what it was I did not catch. But when she
smiled, ah! then, Polystratus, I beheld teeth whose whiteness,
whose unbroken regularity, who shall describe? Imagine a lovely
necklace of gleaming pearls, all of a size; and imagine those
dazzling rows set off by ruby lips. In that glimpse, I realized
what Homer meant by his ‘carven ivory.’ Other women’s teeth differ
in size; or they project; or there are gaps: here, all was equality
and evenness; pearl joined to pearl in unbroken line. Oh, ’twas a
wondrous sight, of beauty more than human.

_Poly_. Stay. I know now whom you mean, as well from your
description as from her nationality. You said that there were
eunuchs in her train?

_Ly_. Yes; and soldiers too.

_Poly_. My simple friend, the lady you have been describing is
a celebrity, and possesses the affections of an Emperor.

_Ly_. And her name?

_Poly_. Adds one more to the list of her charms; for it is the
same as that of Abradatas’s wife. [Footnote: See _Panthea_ in
Notes.] You know Xenophon’s enthusiastic account of that beautiful
and virtuous woman?—you have read it a dozen times.

_Ly_. Yes; and every time I read it, it is as if she stood
before me. I almost hear her uttering the words the historian has
put into her mouth, and see her arming her husband and sending him
forth to battle.

_Poly_. Ah, my dear Lycinus, _this_ lady has passed you
but once, like a lightning flash; and your praises, I perceive, are
all for those external charms that strike the eye. You are yet a
stranger to her nobility of soul; you know not that higher, more
god-like beauty. _I_ am her fellow-countryman, I know her, and
have conversed with her many times. You are aware that gentleness,
humanity, magnanimity, modesty, culture, are things that I prize
more than beauty-and rightly; to do otherwise would be as absurd as
to value raiment above the body. Where physical perfection goes
hand-in-hand with spiritual excellence, there alone (as I maintain)
is true beauty. I could show you many a woman whose outward
loveliness is marred by what is within; who has but to open her
lips, and beauty stands confessed a faded, withered thing, the
mean, unlovely handmaid of that odious mistress, her soul. Such
women are like Egyptian temples: the shrine is fair and stately,
wrought of costly marble, decked out with gilding and painting: but
seek the God within, and you find an ape—an ibis—a goat—a cat.
Of how many women is the same thing true! Beauty unadorned is not
enough: and her true adornments are not purple and jewels, but
those others that I have mentioned, modesty, courtesy, humanity,
virtue and all that waits on virtue.

_Ly_. Why then, Polystratus, you shall give me story for story,
good measure, shaken together, out of your abundance: paint me the
portrait of her soul, that I may be no more her half-admirer.

_Poly_. This will be no light task, my friend. It is one thing
to commend what all the world can see, and quite another to reveal
what is hidden. I too shall want help with my portrait. Nor will
sculptors and painters suffice me: I must have philosophers; it is
by their canons that I must adjust the proportions of the figure,
if I am to attain to the perfection of ancient models.

To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said,
with far more truth than of aged Nestor’s, that

  honey from those lips distilled.

The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as
from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice
breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still
vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener’s ears, and
Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy,
to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre’s accompaniment. Let swans
and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers;
Philomela’s self, ‘full-throated songstress’ though she be, is all
unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus and Amphion, whose spell
drew even lifeless things to hear them, would have dropped their
lyres and stood listening in silence to that voice. What should
Thracian Orpheus, what should Amphion, whose days upon Cithaeron
were divided betwixt his lyre and his herd,—what should they know
of true concord, of accurate rhythm, of accentuation and time, of
the harmonious adaptation of lyre and voice, of easy and graceful
execution? Yes; once hear her sing, Lycinus, and you will know
something of Sirens as well as of Gorgons: you have experienced
petrifaction; you will next learn what it is to stand entranced,
forgetting country and kindred. Wax will not avail you: her song
will penetrate through all; for therein is every grace that
Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope herself, could inspire. In a word,
imagine that you hear such notes as should issue from those lips,
those teeth that you have seen. Her perfect intonation, her pure
Ionic accent, her ready Attic eloquence, need not surprise you;
these are her birthright; for is not Smyrna Athens’ daughter? And
what more natural than that she should love poetry, and make it her
chief study? Homer is her fellow citizen.—There you have my first
portrait; the portrait of a sweet-voiced songstress, though it
fall far short of its original. And now for others. For I do not
propose to make one of many, as you did. I aim higher: the complex
picture of so many beauties wrought into one, however artful be the
composition, cannot escape inconsistency: with me, each separate
virtue of her soul shall sit for its own portrait.

_Ly_. What a banquet awaits me! Here, assuredly, is good
measure. Mete it out; I ask for nothing better.

_Poly_. I proceed then to the delineation of Culture, the
confessed mistress of all mental excellences, particularly of all
acquired ones: I must render her features in all their manifold
variety; not even here shall my portraiture be inferior to your
own. I paint her, then, with every grace that Helicon can give.
Each of the Muses has but her single accomplishment, be it tragedy
or history or hymn: all these Culture shall have, and with them the
gifts of Hermes and of Apollo. The poet’s graceful numbers, the
orator’s persuasive power, the historian’s learning, the sage’s
counsel, all these shall be her adornments; the colours shall be
imperishable, and laid on with no niggardly brush. It is not my
fault, if I am unable to point to any classical model for the
portrait: the records of antiquity afford no precedent for a
culture so highly developed.—May I hang this beside the other? I
think it is a passable likeness.

_Ly_. Passable! My dear Polystratus, it is sublime;
exquisitely finished in every line.

_Poly_. Next I have to depict Wisdom; and here I shall have
occasion for many models, most of them ancient; one comes, like the
lady herself, from Ionia. The artists shall be Aeschines and
Socrates his master, most realistic of painters, for their heart
was in their work. We could choose no better model of wisdom than
Milesian Aspasia, the admired of the admirable ‘Olympian’ [Footnote:
See _Pericles_ in Notes.]; her political knowledge and insight,
her shrewdness and penetration, shall all be transferred to our
canvas in their perfect measure. Aspasia, however, is only
preserved to us in miniature: _our_ proportions must be those
of a colossus.

_Ly_. Explain.

_Poly_. The portraits will be alike, but not on the same
scale. There is a difference between the little republic of ancient
Athens, and the Roman Empire of to-day; and there will be the same
difference in _scale_ (however close the resemblance in other
respects) between our huge canvas and that miniature. A second and
a third model may be found in Theano, and in the poetess of Lesbos;
nay, we may add Diotima too. Theano shall give grandeur to the
picture, Sappho elegance; and Diotima shall be represented as well
by her wisdom and sagacity, as by the qualities for which Socrates
commended her. The portrait is complete. Let it be hung.

_Ly_. ’Tis a fine piece of work. Proceed.

_Poly_. Courtesy, benevolence: that is now my subject. I have
to show forth her gentle disposition, her graciousness to
suppliants. She shall appear in the likeness of Theano—Antenor’s
Theano this time—, of Arete and her daughter Nausicaa, and of
every other who in her high station has borne herself with
constancy. Next comes constancy of another kind,—constancy in
love; its original, the daughter of Icarius, ‘constant’ and ‘wise,’
as Homer draws her; am I doing more than justice to his Penelope?
And there is another: our lady’s namesake, Abradatas’s wife; of her
we have already spoken.

_Ly_. Once more, noble work, Polystratus. And now your task
must be drawing to a close: here is a whole soul depicted; its
every virtue praised.

_Poly_. Not yet: the highest praise remains. Born to magnificence,
she clothes not herself in the pride of wealth; listens not to
Fortune’s flattering tale, who tells her she is more than human;
but walks upon the common ground, far removed from all thought of
arrogance and ostentation. Every man is her equal; her greeting,
her smile are for all who approach her; and how acceptable is the
kindness of a superior, when it is free from every touch of
condescension! When the power of the great turns not to insolence
but to beneficence, we feel that Fortune has bestowed her gifts
aright. Here alone Envy has no place. For how should one man grudge
another his prosperity when he sees him using it with moderation,
not, like the Homeric Ate, an oppressor of the weak, trampling on
men’s necks? It is otherwise with those meaner souls—victims of
their own ignoble vanity—, who, when Fortune has raised them
suddenly beyond their hopes into her winged aerial car, know no
rest, can never look behind them, but must ever press upwards. To
such the end soon comes: Icarus-like, with melted wax and moulting
feathers, they fall headlong into the billows, a derision to
mankind. The Daedaluses use their waxen wings with moderation: they
are but men; they husband their strength accordingly, and are
content to fly a little higher than the waves,—so little that the
sun never finds them dry; and that prudence is their salvation.

Therein lies this lady’s highest praise. She has her reward: all
men pray that her wings may never droop, and that blessings may
increase upon her.

_Ly_. And may the prayer be granted! She deserves every
blessing: she is not outwardly fair alone, like Helen, but has a
soul within more fair, more lovely than her body. It is a fitting
crown to the happiness of our benevolent and gracious Emperor, that
in his day such a woman should be born; should be his, and her
affections his. It is blessedness indeed, to possess one of whom we
may say with Homer that she contends with golden Aphrodite in
beauty, and in works is the equal of Athene. Who of womankind shall
be compared to her

  In comeliness, in wit, in goodly works?

_Poly_. Who indeed?—Lycinus, I have a proposal to make. Let
us combine our portraits, yours of the body and mine of the soul,
and throw them into a literary form, for the enjoyment of our
generation and of all posterity. Such a work will be more enduring
than those of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus; it will be far
removed from creations of wood and wax and colour, being inspired
by the Muses, in whom alone is that true portraiture that shows
forth in one likeness a lovely body and a virtuous soul.




DEFENCE OF THE ‘PORTRAIT-STUDY’

_Polystratus_. _Lycinus_


_Poly_. Well, here is the lady’s comment. _Your pages are most kind
and complimentary, I am sure, Lycinus. No one would have so
over-praised me who had not felt kindly towards me. But if you
would know my real feeling, here it is. I never do much like the
complaisant; they always strike me as insincere and wanting in
frankness. But when it comes to a set panegyric, in which my much
magnified virtues are painted in glaring colours, I blush and would
fain stop my ears, and feel that I am rather being made fun of than
commended.

Praise is tolerable up to the point at which the object of it can
still believe in the existence of the qualities attributed to him;
pass that point, and he is revolted and finds the flatterer out. Of
course I know there are plenty of people who are glad enough to
have non-existent qualities added to their praises; who do not mind
being called young and lusty in their decline, or Nireuses and
Phaons though they are hideous; who, Pelias-like, expect praise to
metamorphose or rejuvenate them.

But they are mistaken. Praise would indeed be a most precious
commodity if there were any way of converting its extravagances
into solid fact. But there being none, they can only be compared to
an ugly man on whom one should clap a beautiful mask, and who
should then be proud of those looks that any one could take from
him and break to pieces; revealed in his true likeness, he would be
only the more ridiculous for the contrast between casket and
treasure. Or, if you will, imagine a little man on stilts measuring
heights with people who have eighteen inches the better of him in
stocking feet_.

And then she told this story. There was a noble lady, fair and
comely in all respects except that she was short and ill-proportioned.
A poet wrote an ode in her honour, and included among her beauties
that of tallness; her slender height was illustrated from the poplar.
She was in ecstasies, as though the verses were making her grow, and
kept waving her hand. Which the poet seeing, and realizing her
appetite for praise, recited the lines again and again, till at last
one of the company whispered in his ear, ‘Stop, my good man; you will
be making her get up.’

She added a similar but still more absurd anecdote of Stratonice
the wife of Seleucus, who offered a talent to the poet who should
best celebrate her hair. As a matter of fact she was bald, with not
a hair to call her own. But what matter what her head was like, or
that every one knew how a long illness had treated her? she
listened to these abandoned poets telling of hyacinthine locks,
plaiting thick tresses, and making imaginary curls as crisp as
parsley.

All such surrenders to flattery were laughed to scorn, with the
addition that many people were just as fond of being flattered and
fooled by portrait-painters as these by verbal artists. _What
these people look for in a painter_ (she said) _is readiness
to improve nature: Some of them insist upon the artist’s taking a
little off their noses, deepening the shade of their eyes, or
otherwise idealizing them to order; it quite escapes them that the
garlands they afterwards put on the picture are offered to another
person who bears no relation to themselves_.

And so she went on, finding much in your composition to approve,
but displeased in particular with your likening her to Hera and
Aphrodite. _Such comparisons are far too high for me_, she
said, _or indeed for any of womankind. Why, I would not have had
you put me on a level with women of the Heroic Age, with a
Penelope, an Arete, a Theano; how much less with the chief of the
Goddesses. Where the Gods are concerned_ (she continued; and
mark her here), _I am very apprehensive and timid. I fear that to
accept a panegyric like this would be to make a Cassiopeia of
myself; though indeed_ she _only challenged the Nereids, and
stopped short of Hera and Aphrodite_.

So, Lycinus, she insisted that you must recast all this; otherwise
she must call the Goddesses to witness that you had written against
her wishes, and leave you to the knowledge that the piece would be
an annoyance to her, if it circulated in its present shape, so
lacking in reverence and piety. The outrage on reverence would be
put down to her, if she allowed herself to be likened to her of
Cnidus and her of the Garden. She would have you bear in mind the
close of your discourse, where you spoke of the unassuming modesty
that attempted no superhuman flights, but kept near the earth. It
was inconsistent with that to take the same woman up to heaven and
compare her with Goddesses.

She would like to be allowed as much sense as Alexander; he, when
his architect proposed to transform Mount Athos into a vast image
of the King with a pair of cities in his hands, shrank from the
grandiose proposal; such presumption was beyond him; such patent
megalomania must be suppressed; leave Athos alone, he said, and do
not degrade a mighty mountain to the similitude of a poor human
body. This only showed the greatness of Alexander, and itself
constituted in the eyes of all future generations a monument higher
than any Athos; to be able to scorn so extraordinary an honour was
itself magnanimity.

So she commends your work of art, and your selective method, but
cannot recognize the likeness. She does not come up to the
description, nor near it, for indeed no woman could. Accordingly
she sends you back your laudation, and pays homage to the originals
from which you drew it. Confine your praises within the limits of
humanity; if the shoe is too big, it may chance to trip her up.
Then there was another point which I was to impress upon you.

_I often hear_, she said,—_but whether it is true, you men
know better than I—that at Olympia the victors are not allowed to
have their statues set up larger than life; the Stewards see to it
that no one transgresses this rule, examining the statues even more
scrupulously than they did the competitor’s qualification. Take
care that we do not get convicted of false proportions, and find
our statue thrown down by the Stewards_.

And now I have given you her message. It is for you, Lycinus, to
overhaul your work, and by removing these blemishes avoid the
offence. They shocked and made her nervous as I read; she kept on
addressing the Goddesses in propitiatory words; and such feelings
may surely be permitted to her sex. For that matter, to be quite
frank, I shared them to some extent. At the first hearing I found
no offence; but as soon as she put her finger on the fault, I began
to agree. You know what happens with visible objects; if we look at
them at close quarters, just under our eyes, I mean, we distinguish
nothing clearly; but stepping back to the right distance, we get a
clear conception of what is right and what is wrong about them.
That was my experience here.

After all, to compare a mortal to Hera and Aphrodite is cheapening
the Goddesses, and nothing else. In such comparisons the small is
not so much magnified as the great is diminished and reduced. If a
giant and a dwarf were walking together, and their heights had to
be equalized, no efforts of the dwarf could effect it, however much
he stood on tiptoe; the giant must stoop and make himself out
shorter than he is. So in this sort of portraiture: the human is
not so much exalted by the similitude as the divine is belittled
and pulled down. If indeed a lack of earthly beauties forced the
artist upon scaling Heaven, he might perhaps be acquitted of
blasphemy; but your enterprise was so needless; why Aphrodite and
Hera, when you have all mortal beauty to choose from?

Prune and chasten, then, Lycinus. All this is not quite like you,
who never used to be over-ready with your commendation; you seem to
have gone now to the opposite extreme of prodigality, and developed
from a niggard into a spendthrift of praise. Do not be ashamed to
make alterations in what you have already published, either. They
say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus. He stood
behind the doors when he had opened them for the first time to let
the work be seen, and listened to the comments favourable or the
reverse. One found the nose too broad, another the face too long,
and so on. When the company was gone, he shut himself up again to
correct and adapt his statue to the prevailing taste. Advice so
many-headed was not to be despised; the many must after all see
further than the one, though that one be Phidias. There is the
counsel of a friend and well-wisher to back up the lady’s message.

_Ly_. Why, Polystratus, I never knew what an orator you were.
After that eloquent close-packed indictment of my booklet, I almost
despair of the defence. You and she were not quite judicial,
though; you less than she, in condemning the accused when its
counsel was not in court. It is always easy to win a walk-over,
you know; so no wonder we were convicted, not being allowed to
speak or given the ear of the court. But, still more monstrous, you
were accusers and jury at once. Well, what am I to do? accept the
verdict and hold my tongue? pen a palinode like Stesichorus? or
will you grant an appeal?

_Poly_. Surely, if you have anything to say for yourself. For
you will be heard not by opponents, as you say, but by friends.
Indeed, my place is with you in the dock.

_Ly_. How I wish I could, have spoken in her own presence!
that would have been far better; but I must do it by proxy.
However, if you will report me to her as well as you did her to me,
I will adventure.

_Poly_. Trust me to do justice to the defence; but put it
shortly, in mercy to my memory.

_Ly_. So severe an indictment should by rights be met at
length; but for your sake I will cut it short. Put these
considerations before her from me, then.

_Poly_. No, not that way, please. Make your speech, just as
though she were listening, and I will reproduce you to her.

_Ly_. Very well, then. She is here; she has just delivered the
oration which you have described to me; it is now counsel’s turn.
And yet—I must confide my feelings to you—you have made my
undertaking somehow more formidable; you see the beads gather on my
brow; my courage goes; I seem to see her there; my situation
bewilders me. Yet begin I will; how can I draw back when she is
there?

_Poly_. Ah, but her face promises a kindly hearing; see how
bright and gracious. Pluck up heart, man, and begin.

_Ly_. Most noble lady, in what you term the great and excessive
praise that I bestowed upon you, I find no such high testimony to
your merits as that which you have borne yourself by your surprise
at the attribution of divinity. That one thing surpasses all that I
have said of you, and my only excuse for not having added this
trait to my portrait is that I was not aware of it; if I had been,
no other should have had precedence of it. In this light I find
myself, far from exaggerating, to have fallen much short of the
truth. Consider the magnitude of this omission, the convincing
demonstration of a sterling character and a right disposition which
I lost; for those will be the best in human relations who are most
earnest in their dealings with the divine. Why, were it decided
that I must correct my words and retouch my statue, I should do it
not by presuming to take away from it, but by adding this as its
crowning grace. But from another point of view I have a great debt
of gratitude to acknowledge. I commend your natural modesty, and
your freedom from that vanity and pride which so exalted a position
as yours might excuse. The best witness to my correctness is just
the exception that you have taken to my words. That instead of
receiving the praise I offered as your right you should be
disturbed at it and call it excessive, is the proof of your
unassuming modesty. Nevertheless, the more you reveal that this is
your view of praise, the stronger proof you give of your own
worthiness to be praised. You are an exact illustration of what
Diogenes said when some one asked him how he might become famous:—
‘by despising fame.’ So if I were asked who most deserve praise, I
should answer, Those who refuse it.

But I am perhaps straying from the point. What I have to defend is
the having likened you, in giving your outward form, to the Cnidian
and the Garden _Aphrodite_, to _Hera_ and _Athene_; such
comparisons you find out of all proportion. I will deal directly
with them, then. It has indeed been said long ago that poets and
painters are irresponsible; that is still more true, I conceive, of
panegyrists, even humble prose ones like myself who are not run
away with by their metre. Panegyric is a chartered thing, with no
standard quantitative measure to which it must conform; its one and
only aim is to express deep admiration and set its object in the
most enviable light. However, I do not intend to take that line of
defence; you might think I did so because I had no other open.

But I have. I refer you to the proper formula of panegyric, which
requires the author to introduce illustrations, and depends mainly
on their goodness for success. Now this goodness is shown not when
the illustration is just like the thing illustrated, nor yet when
it is inferior, but when it is as high above it as may be. If in
praising a dog one should remark that it was bigger than a fox or a
cat, would you regard him as a skilful panegyrist? certainly not.
Or if he calls it the equal of a wolf, he has not made very much of
it so either. Where is the right thing to be found? why, in
likening the dog’s size and spirit to the lion’s. So the poet who
would praise Orion’s dog called it the lion-queller. There you have
the perfect panegyric of the dog. Or take Milo of Croton, Glaucus
of Carystus, or Polydamas; to say of them by way of panegyric that
each of them was stronger than a woman would be to make oneself a
laughing-stock; one man instead of the woman would not much mend
matters. But what, pray, does a famous poet make of Glaucus?—

  To match those hands not e’en the might
   Of Pollux’ self had dared;
  Alcmena’s son, that iron wight,
   Had shrunk—

See what Gods he equals him to, or rather what Gods he puts him
above. And Glaucus took no exception to being praised at the
expense of his art’s patron deities; nor yet did they send any
judgement on athlete or poet for irreverence; both continued to be
honoured in Greece, one for his might, and the other for this even
more than for his other odes. Do not be surprised, then, that when
I wished to conform to the canons of my art and find an
illustration, I took an exalted one, as reason was that I should.

You used the word flattery. To dislike those who practise it is
only what you should do, and I honour you for it. But I would have
you distinguish between panegyric proper and the flatterer’s
exaggeration of it. The flatterer praises for selfish ends,
cares little for truth, and makes it his business to magnify
indiscriminately; most of his effects consist in lying additions of
his own; he thinks nothing of making Thersites handsomer than
Achilles, or telling Nestor he is younger than any of the host; he
will swear Croesus’s son hears better than Melampus, and give
Phineus better sight than Lynceus, if he sees his way to a profit
on the lie. But the panegyrist pure and simple, instead of lying
outright, or inventing a quality that does not exist, takes the
virtues his subject really does possess, though possibly not in
large measure, and makes the most of them. The horse is really
distinguished among the animals we know for light-footed speed;
well, in praising a horse, he will hazard:

  The corn-stalks brake not ‘neath his airy tread.

He will not be frightened of ‘whirlwind-footed steeds.’ If his
theme is a noble house, with everything handsome about it,

  Zeus on Olympus dwells in such a home,

we shall be told. But your flatterer would use that line about the
swineherd’s hovel, if he saw a chance of getting anything out of
the swineherd. Demetrius Poliorcetes had a flatterer called
Cynaethus who, when he was gravelled for lack of matter, found some
in a cough that troubled his patron—he cleared his throat so
musically!

There you have one criterion: flatterers do not draw the line at a
lie if it will please their patrons; panegyrists aim merely at
bringing into relief what really exists. But there is another great
difference: the flatterers exaggerate as much as ever they can; the
panegyrists in the midst of exaggeration observe the limitations of
decency. And now that you have one or two of the many tests for
flattery and panegyric proper, I hope you will not treat all praise
as suspect, but make distinctions and assign each specimen to its
true class.

By your leave I will proceed to apply the two definitions to what I
wrote; which of them fits it? If it had been an ugly woman that I
likened to the Cnidian statue, I should deserve to be thought a
toady, further gone in flattery than Cynaethus. But as it was one
for whose charms I can call all men to witness, my shot was not so
far out.

Now you will perhaps say—nay, you have said already—Praise my
beauty, if you will; but the praise should not have been of that
invidious kind which compares a woman to Goddesses. Well, I will
keep truth at arm’s length no longer; I did _not_, dear lady,
compare you to Goddesses, but to the handiwork in marble and bronze
and ivory of certain good artists. There is no impiety, surely, in
illustrating mortal beauty by the work of mortal hands—unless you
take the thing that Phidias fashioned to be indeed Athene, or
Praxiteles’s not much later work at Cnidus to be the heavenly
Aphrodite. But would that be quite a worthy conception of divine
beings? I take the real presentment of them to be beyond the reach
of human imitation.

But granting even that it had been the actual Goddesses to whom I
likened you, it would be no new track, of which I had been the
pioneer; it had been trodden before by many a great poet, most of
all by your fellow citizen Homer, who will kindly now come and
share my defence, on pain of sharing my sentence. I will ask him,
then—or rather you for him; for it is one of your merits to have
all his finest passages by heart—what think you, then, of his
saying about the captive Briseis that in her mourning for Patroclus
she was ‘Golden Aphrodite’s peer’? A little further on, Aphrodite
alone not meeting the case, it is:

  So spake that weeping dame, a match for Goddesses.

When he talks like that, do you take offence and fling the book
away, or has _he_ your licence to expatiate in panegyric?
Whether he has yours or not, he has that of all these centuries,
wherein not a critic has found fault with him for it, not he
that dared to scourge his statue [Footnote: Zoilus, called
Homeromastix.], not he whose marginal pen [Footnote: Aristarclius.]
bastarded so many of his verses. Now, shall he have leave to match
with Golden Aphrodite a barbarian woman, and her in tears, while I,
lest I should describe the beauty that you like not to hear of, am
forbidden to compare certain images to a lady who is ever bright
and smiling—that beauty which mortals share with Gods?

When he had Agamemnon in hand, he was most chary of divine
similitudes, to be sure! what economy and moderation in his use of
them! Let us see—eyes and head from Zeus, belt from Ares, chest
from Posidon; why, he deals the man out piecemeal among the host of
Heaven. Elsewhere, Agamemnon is ‘like baleful Ares’; others have
their heavenly models; Priam’s son (a Phrygian, mark) is ‘of form
divine,’ the son of Peleus is again and again ‘a match for Gods.’
But let us come back to the feminine instances You remember, of
course,

  —a match
  For Artemis or golden Aphrodite;

and

  Like Artemis adown the mountain slope.

But he does not even limit himself to comparing the whole man to a
God; Euphorbus’s mere hair is called like the Graces—when it is
dabbled with blood, too. In fact the practice is so universal that
no branch of poetry can do without its ornaments from Heaven.
Either let all these be blotted, or let me have the same licence.
Moreover, illustration is so irresponsible that Homer allows
himself to convey his compliments to Goddesses by using creatures
inferior to them. Hera is ox-eyed. Another poet colours Aphrodite’s
eyes from the violet. As for fingers like the rose, it takes but
little of Homer’s society to bring us acquainted with them.

Still, so far we do not get beyond mere looks; a man is only called
_like_ a God. But think of the wholesale adaptation of their
names, by Dionysiuses, Hephaestions, Zenos, Posidoniuses,
Hermaeuses. Leto, wife of Evagoras, King of Cyprus, even dispensed
with adaptation; but her divine namesake, who could have turned her
into stone like Niobe, took no offence. What need to mention that
the most religious race on earth, the Egyptian, never tires of
divine names? most of those it uses hail from Heaven.

Consequently, there is not the smallest occasion for you to be
nervous about the panegyric. If what I wrote contains anything
offensive to the deity, you are not responsible, unless you
consider we are responsible for all that goes in at our ears; no, I
shall pay the penalty—as soon as the Gods have settled with Homer
and the other poets. Ah, and they have not done so yet with the
best of all philosophers [Footnote: Lucian’s ‘best of all
philosophers’ might be Plato, who is their spokesman in ‘The
Fisher’ (see Sections 14, 22), or Epicurus, in the light of two
passages in the ‘Alexander’ (Sections 47, 61) in which he almost
declares himself an Epicurean. The exact words are not found in
Plato, though several similar expressions are quoted; words of
Epicurus appear to be translated in Cicero, _De nat. Deorum_,
Book I, xviii s. f., hominis esse specie deos confitendum est: we
must admit that the Gods are in the image of man.], for saying that
man is a likeness of God. But now, though I could say much more,
madam, I must have compassion upon Polystratus’s memory, and cease.

_Poly_. I am not so sure I am equal to it, Lycinus, as it is.
You have made it long, and exceeded your time limit. However, I
will do my best. See, I scurry off with my fingers in my ears, that
no alien sound may find its way in to disturb the arrangement; I do
not want to be hissed by my audience.

_Ly_. Well, the responsibility for a correct report lies with
you alone. And having now duly instructed you, I will retire for
the present. But when the verdict is brought into court, I will be
there to learn the result.




TOXARIS: A DIALOGUE OF FRIENDSHIP

_Mnesippus_. _Toxaris_


_Mne_. Now, Toxaris: do you mean to tell me that you people
actually _sacrifice_ to Orestes and Pylades? do you take them
for Gods?

_Tox_. Sacrifice to them? of course we do. It does not follow
that we think they are Gods: they were good men.

_Mne_. And in Scythia ‘good men’ receive sacrifice just the
same as Gods?

_Tox_. Not only that, but we honour them with feasts and
public gatherings.

_Mne_. But what do you expect from them? They are shades now,
so their goodwill can be no object.

_Tox_. Why, as to that, I think it may be just as well to have
a good understanding even with shades. But that is not all: in
honouring the dead we consider that we are also doing the best we
can for the living. Our idea is that by preserving the memory of
the noblest of mankind, we induce many people to follow their
example.

_Mne_. Ah, there you are right. But what could you find to
admire in Orestes and Pylades, that you should exalt them to
godhead? They were strangers to you: strangers, did I say? they
were enemies! Why, when they were shipwrecked on your coast, and
your ancestors laid hands on them, and took them off to be
sacrificed to Artemis, they assaulted the gaolers, overpowered the
garrison, slew the king, carried off the priestess, laid impious
hands on the Goddess herself, and so took ship, snapping their
fingers at Scythia and her laws. If you honour men for this kind of
thing, there will be plenty of people to follow their example, and
you will have your hands full. You may judge for yourselves, from
ancient precedent, whether it will suit you to have so many
Oresteses and Pyladeses putting into your ports. It seems to me
that it will soon end in your having no religion left at all: God
after God will be expatriated in the same manner, and then I
suppose you will supply their place by deifying their kidnappers,
thus rewarding sacrilege with sacrifice. If this is not your motive
in honouring Orestes and Pylades, I shall be glad to know what
other service they have rendered you, that you should change your
minds about them, and admit them to divine honours. Your ancestors
did their best to offer them up to Artemis: you offer up victims to
them. It seems an absurd inconsistency.

_Tox_. Now, in the first place, the incident you refer to is
very much to their credit. Think of those two entering on that vast
undertaking by themselves: sailing away from their country to the
distant Euxine [Footnote: See _Euxine_ in Notes.]—that sea
unknown in those days to the Greeks, or known only to the
Argonauts—unmoved by the stories they heard of it, undeterred by
the inhospitable name it then bore, which I suppose referred to the
savage nations that dwelt upon its shores; think of their
courageous bearing after they were captured; how escape alone would
not serve them, but they must avenge their wrong upon the king, and
carry Artemis away over the seas. Are not these admirable deeds,
and shall not the doers be counted as Gods by all who esteem
prowess? However, this is not our motive in giving them divine
honours.

_Mne_. Proceed. What else of godlike and sublime was in their
conduct? Because from the seafaring point of view, there are any
number of merchants whose divinity I will maintain against theirs:
the Phoenicians, in particular, have sailed to every port in Greek
and foreign waters, let alone the Euxine, the Maeotian Lake and the
Bosphorus; year after year they explore every coast, only returning
home at the approach of winter. Hucksters though they be for the
most part, and fishmongers, you must deify them all, to be
consistent.

_Tox_. Now, now, Mnesippus, listen to me, and you shall see
how much more candid we barbarians are in our valuation of good men
than you Greeks. In Argos and Mycenae there is not so much as a
respectable tomb raised to Orestes and Pylades: in Scythia, they
have their temple, which is very appropriately dedicated to the two
friends in common, their sacrifices, and every honour. The fact of
their being foreigners does not prevent us from recognizing their
virtues. We do not inquire into the nationality of noble souls: we
can hear without envy of the illustrious deeds of our enemies; we
do justice to their merits, and count them Scythians in deed if not
in name. What particularly excites our reverent admiration in the
present case is the unparalleled loyalty of the two friends; in
them we have a model from which every man may learn how he must
share good and evil fortune with his friends, if he would enjoy the
esteem of all good Scythians. The sufferings they endured with and
for one another our ancestors recorded on a brazen pillar in the
Oresteum; and they made it law, that the education of their
children should begin with committing to memory all that is
inscribed thereon. More easily shall a child forget his own
father’s name than be at fault in the achievements of Orestes and
Pylades. Again, in the temple corridor are pictures by the artists
of old, illustrating the story set forth on the pillar. Orestes is
first shown on shipboard, with his friend at his side. Next, the
ship has gone to pieces on the rocks; Orestes is captured and
bound; already Iphigenia prepares the two victims for sacrifice.
But on the opposite wall we see that Orestes has broken free;
he slays Thoas and many a Scythian; and the last scene shows
them sailing away, with Iphigenia and the Goddess; the Scythians
clutch vainly at the receding vessel; they cling to the rudder,
they strive to clamber on board; at last, utterly baffled,
they swim back to the shore, wounded or terrified. It is at this
point in their conflict with the Scythians that the devotion of the
friends is best illustrated: the painter makes each of them
disregard his own enemies, and ward off his friend’s assailants,
seeking to intercept the arrows before they can reach him, and
counting lightly of death, if he can save his friend, and receive in
his own person the wounds that are meant for the other. Such
devotion, such loyal and loving partnership in danger, such true and
steadfast affection, we held to be more than human; it indicated a
spirit not to be found in common men. While the gale is prosperous,
we all take it very much amiss if our friends will not share equally
with us: but let the wind shift ever so little, and we leave them to
weather the storm by themselves. I must tell you that in Scythia no
quality is more highly esteemed than this of friendship; there is
nothing on which a Scythian prides himself so much as on sharing the
toils and dangers of his friend; just as nothing is a greater
reproach among us than treachery to a friend. We honour Orestes and
Pylades, then, because they excelled in the Scythian virtue of
loyalty, which we place above all others; and it is for this that we
have bestowed on them the name of Coraci, which in our language
means spirits of friendship.

_Mne_. Ah, Toxaris, so archery is not the only accomplishment
of the Scythians, I find; they excel in rhetorical as well as in
military skill. You have persuaded me already that you were right in
deifying Orestes and Pylades, though I thought differently just now.
I had no conception, either, what a painter you were. Your
description of the pictures in the Oresteum was most vivid;—that
battle-scene, and the way in which the two intercepted one another’s
wounds. Only I should never have thought that the Scythians would
set such a high value on friendship: they are such a wild,
inhospitable race; I should have said they had more to do with anger
and hatred and enmity than with friendship, even for their nearest
relations, judging by what one is told; it is said, for instance,
that they devour their fathers’ corpses.

_Tox_. Well, which of the two is the more dutiful and pious in
general, Greek or Scythian, we will not discuss just now: but that
we are more loyal friends than you, and that we treat friendship
more seriously, is easily shown. Now please do not be angry with me,
in the name of all your Gods: but I am going to mention a few points
I have observed during my stay in this country. I can see that you
are all admirably well qualified to talk about friendship: but
when it comes to putting your words into practice, there is a
considerable falling off; it is enough for you to have demonstrated
what an excellent thing friendship is, and somehow or other, at the
critical moment, you make off, and leave your fine words to look
after themselves. Similarly, when your tragedians represent this
subject on the stage, you are loud in your applause; the spectacle
of one friend risking his life for another generally brings tears to
your eyes: but you are quite incapable of rendering any such signal
services yourselves; once let your friends get into difficulties,
and all those tragic reminiscences take wing like so many dreams;
you are then the very image of the silent mask which the actor has
thrown aside: its mouth is open to its fullest extent, but not a
syllable does it utter. It is the other way with us: we are as much
superior to you in the practice of friendship, as we are inferior in
expounding the theory of it.

Now, what do you say to this proposal? let us leave out of the
question all the cases of ancient friendship that either of us
might enumerate (there you would have the advantage of me: you
could produce all the poets on your side, most credible of
witnesses, with their Achilles and Patroclus, their Theseus and
Pirithous, and others, all celebrated in the most charming verses);
and instead let each of us advance a few instances of devotion that
have occurred within his own experience, among our respective
countrymen; these we will relate in detail, and whoever can show
the best friendships is the winner, and announces his country as
victorious. Mighty issues are at stake: I for my part would rather
be worsted in single combat, and lose my right hand, as the
Scythian custom is, than yield to any man on the question of
friendship, above all to a Greek; for am I not a Scythian?

_Mne_. I have got my work cut out for me, if I am to engage an
old soldier like Toxaris, with a whole arsenal of keen words at his
command. Well, I am not such a craven as to decline the challenge,
when my country’s honour is at stake. Could those two overcome the
host of Scythians represented in the legend, and in the ancient
pictures you have just described so impressively,—and shall
Greece, her peoples and her cities, be condemned for want of one to
plead her cause? Strange indeed, if that were so; I should deserve
to lose not my hand like you, but my tongue. Well now, is the
number of friendships to be limited, or does wealth of instances
itself constitute one claim to superiority?

_Tox_. Oh no; number counts for nothing, that must be understood.
We have the same number, and it is simply a question whether
yours are better and more pointed than mine; if they are, of
course, the wounds you inflict will be the more deadly, and I
shall be the first to succumb.

_Mne_. Very well. Let us fix the number: I say five each.

_Tox_. Five be it, and you begin. But you must be sworn first:
because the subject naturally lends itself to fictitious treatment;
there is no checking anything. When you have sworn, it would be
impious to doubt your word.

_Mne_. Very well, if you think it necessary. Have you any
preference among our Gods? How would the God of Friendship meet the
case?

_Tox_. Excellently; and when my turn comes, I will employ the
national oath of the Scythians.

_Mne_. Zeus the God of Friendship be my witness, that all I
shall now relate is derived either from my own experience, or from
such careful inquiry as I was able to make of others; and is free
from all imaginative additions of my own. I will begin with, the
friendship of Agathocles and Dinias. The story is well known in
Ionia. This Agathocles was a native of Samos, and lived not many
years ago. Though his conduct showed him to be the best of friends,
he was of no better family and in no better circumstances than the
generality of the Samians. From boyhood he had been the friend of
Dinias, the son of Lyson, an Ephesian. Dinias, it seems, was
enormously wealthy, and as his wealth was newly acquired, it is not
to be wondered at that he had plenty of acquaintances besides
Agathocles; persons who were quite qualified to share his
pleasures, and to be his boon-companions, but who were very far
indeed from being friends. For some time Agathocles—little as he
cared for such a life—played his convivial part with the rest,
Dinias making no distinction between him and the parasites.
Finally, however, he took to finding fault with his friend’s
conduct, and gave great offence: his continual allusions to
Dinias’s ancestry, and his exhortations to him to husband the
fortune which had cost his father such labour to acquire, seemed to
his friend to be in indifferent taste. He gave up asking Agathocles
to join in his revels, contented himself with the company of his
parasites, and sought to elude his friend’s observation. Well, the
misguided youth was presently persuaded by his flatterers that he
had made a conquest of Chariclea, the wife of Demonax, an eminent
Ephesian, holding the highest office in that city. He was kept well
supplied with billets-doux, half-faded flowers, bitten apples, and
all the stock-in-trade of those intriguing dames whose business it
is to fan an artificial passion that vanity has inspired. There is
no more seductive bait to young men who value themselves on their
personal attractions, than the belief that they have made an
impression; they are sure to fall into the trap. Chariclea was a
charming little woman, but sadly wanting in reserve: any one might
enjoy her favours, and on the easiest of terms; the most casual
glance was sure to meet with encouragement; there was never any
fear of a repulse from Chariclea. With more than professional
skill, she could draw on a hesitating lover till his subjugation
was complete: then, when she was sure of him, she had a variety of
devices for inflaming his passion: she could storm, and she could
flatter; and flattery would be succeeded by contempt, or by a
feigned preference for his rival;—in short, her resources were
infinite; she was armed against her lovers at every point. This was
the lady whom Dinias’s parasites now associated with them; they
played their subordinate part well, and between them fairly hustled
the boy into a passion for Chariclea. Such a finished mistress of
the art of perdition, who had ruined plenty of victims before, and
acted love-scenes and swallowed fine fortunes without number, was
not likely to let this simple inexperienced youth out of her
clutches: she struck her talons into him on every side, and secured
her quarry so effectually, that she was involved in his
destruction,—to say nothing of the miseries of the hapless victim.
She got to work at once with the billets-doux. Her maid was for
ever coming with news of tears and sleepless nights: ‘her poor
mistress was ready to hang herself for love.’ The ingenuous youth
was at length driven to conclude that his attractions were too much
for the ladies of Ephesus; he yielded to the girl’s entreaties, and
waited upon her mistress. The rest, of course, was easy. How was he
to resist this pretty woman, with her captivating manners, her
well-timed tears, her parenthetic sighs? Lingering farewells,
joyful welcomes, judicious airs and graces, song and lyre,—all
were brought to bear upon him. Dinias was soon a lost man, over
head and ears in love; and Chariclea prepared to give the finishing
stroke. She informed him that he was about to become a father,
which was enough in itself to inflame the amorous simpleton; and
she discontinued her visits to him; her husband, she said, had
discovered her passion, and was watching her. This was altogether
too much for Dinias: he was inconsolable; wept, sent messages by
his parasites, flung his arms about her statue—a marble one which
he had had made—, shrieked forth her name in loud lamentation, and
finally threw himself down upon the ground and rolled about in a
positive frenzy. Her apples and her flowers drew forth presents
which were on quite another scale of munificence: houses and farms,
servants, exquisite fabrics, and gold to any extent. To make a long
story short, the house of Lyson, which had the reputation of being
the wealthiest in Ionia, was quite cleared out. No sooner was this
the case, than Chariclea abandoned Dinias, and went off in pursuit
of a certain golden youth of Crete, irresistible as he, and not
less gullible. Deserted alike by her and by his parasites (who
followed the chase of the fortunate Cretan), Dinias presented
himself before Agathocles, who had long been aware of his friend’s
situation. He swallowed his first feelings of embarrassment, and
made a clean breast of it all: his love, his ruin, his mistress’s
disdain, his Cretan rival; and ended by protesting that without
Chariclea he could not live. Agathocles did not think it necessary
to remind Dinias just then how he alone had been excluded from his
friendship, and how parasites had been preferred to him: instead,
he went off and sold his family residence in Samos—the only
property he possessed—and brought him the proceeds, 750 pounds.
Dinias had no sooner received the money, than it became evident
that he had somehow recovered his good looks, in the opinion of
Chariclea: once more the maid-servant and the notes, with
reproaches for his long neglect; once more, too, the throng of
parasites; they saw that there were still pickings to be had.
Dinias arrived at her house, by agreement, at about bedtime, and
was already inside, when Demonax—whether he had an understanding
with his wife in the matter, as some say, or had got his
information independently—sprang out from concealment, gave orders
to his servants to make the door fast and to secure Dinias, and
then drew his sword, breathing fire and flagellation against the
paramour. Dinias, realizing his danger, caught up a heavy bar that
lay near, and dispatched Demonax with a blow on the temple; then,
turning to Chariclea, he dealt blow after blow with the same
weapon, and finally plunged her husband’s sword into her body. The
domestics stood by, dumb with amazement and terror; and when at
length they attempted to seize him, he rushed at them with the
sword, put them to flight, and slipped away from the fatal scene.
The rest of that night he and Agathocles spent at the latter’s
house, pondering on the deed and its probable consequences. The
news soon spread, and in the morning officers came to arrest
Dinias. He made no attempt to deny the murder, and was conducted
into the presence of the then Prefect of Asia, who sent him up to
the Emperor. He presently returned, under sentence of perpetual
banishment to Gyarus, one of the Cyclades. All this time,
Agathocles had never left his side: with unfaltering devotion, he
accompanied him to Italy, and was the only friend who stood by him
in his trial. And now even in his banishment he would not desert
him, but condemned himself to share the sentence; and when the
necessaries of life failed them, he hired himself out as a diver in
the purple-fishery, and with the proceeds of his industry
supported Dinias and tended him in his sickness till the end. Even
when all was over, he would not return to his own home, but
remained on the island, thinking it shame even in death to desert
his friend. There you have the history of a Greek friendship, and
one of recent date; I think it can scarcely be as much as five
years ago that Agathocles died on Gyarus.

_Tox_. I wish I were at liberty to doubt the truth of your
story: but alas! you speak under oath. Your Agathocles is a truly
Scythian friend; I only hope there are no more of the same kind to
come.

_Mne_. See what you think of the next—Euthydicus of Chalcidice. I
heard his story from Simylus, a shipmaster of Megara, who vowed
that he had been an eyewitness of what he related. He set sail from
Italy about the setting of the Pleiads, bound for Athens, with a
miscellaneous shipload of passengers, among whom were Euthydicus
and his comrade Damon, also of Chalcidice. They were of about the
same age. Euthydicus was a powerful man, in robust health; Damon
was pale and weakly, and looked as if he were just recovering from
a long illness. They had a good voyage as far as Sicily: but they
had no sooner passed through the Straits into the Ionian Sea, than
a tremendous storm overtook them. I need not detain you with
descriptions of mountainous billows and whirlwinds and hail and the
other adjuncts of a storm: suffice it to say, that they were
compelled to take in all sail, and trail cables after them to break
the force of the waves, and in this way made Zacynthus by about
midnight. At this point Damon, being seasick, as was natural in
such a heavy sea, was leaning over the side, when (as I suppose) an
unusually violent lurch of the vessel in his direction, combining
with the rush of water across the deck, hurled him headlong into
the sea. The poor wretch was not even naked, or he might have had a
chance of swimming: it was all he could do to keep himself above
water, and get out a cry for help. Euthydicus was lying in his
berth undressed. He heard the cry, flung himself into the sea, and
succeeded in overtaking the exhausted Damon; and a powerful
moonlight enabled those on deck to see him swimming at his side for
a considerable distance, and supporting him. ‘We all felt for
them,’ said Simylus, ‘and longed to give them some assistance, but
the gale was too much for us: we did, however, throw out a number
of corks and spars on the chance of their getting hold of some of
them, and being carried to shore; and finally we threw over the
gangway, which was of some size.’—Now only think: could any man
give a surer proof of affection, than by throwing himself into a
furious sea like that to share the death of his friend? Picture to
yourself the surging billows, the roar of crashing waters, the
hissing foam, the darkness, the hopeless prospect: look at
Damon,—he is at his last gasp, he barely keeps himself up, he
holds out his hands imploringly to his friend: and lastly look at
Euthydicus, as he leaps into the water, and swims by his side, with
only one thought in his mind,—Damon must not be the first to
perish;—and you will see that Euthydicus too was no bad friend.

_Tox_. I tremble for their fate: were they drowned, or did
some miraculous providence deliver them?

_Mne_. Oh, they were saved all right; and they are in Athens
at this day, both of them, studying philosophy. Simylus’s story
closes with the events of the night: Damon has fallen overboard,
Euthydicus has jumped in to his rescue, and the pair are left
swimming about till they are lost in the darkness. Euthydicus
himself tells the rest. It seems that first they came across some
pieces of cork, which helped to support them; and they managed with
much ado to keep afloat, till about dawn they saw the gangway, swam
up to it, clambered on, and were carried to Zacynthus without
further trouble. These, I think, are passable instances of
friendship; and my third is no way inferior to them, as you shall
hear.

Eudamidas of Corinth, though he was himself in very narrow
circumstances, had two friends who were well-to-do, Aretaeus his
fellow townsman, and Charixenus of Sicyon. When Eudamidas died, he
left a will behind him which I dare say would excite most people’s
ridicule: but what the generous Toxaris, with his respect for
friendship and his ambition to secure its highest honours for his
country, may think of the matter, is another question. The terms of
the will—but first I should explain that Eudamidas left behind him
an aged mother and a daughter of marriageable years;—the will,
then, was as follows: _To Aretaeus I bequeath my mother, to tend
and to cherish in her old age: and to Charixenus my daughter, to
give in marriage with such dowry as his circumstances will admit
of: and should anything befall either of the legatees, then let his
portion pass to the survivor_. The reading of this will caused
some merriment among the hearers, who knew of Eudamidas’s poverty,
but did not know anything of the friendship existing between him
and his heirs. They went off much tickled at the handsome legacy
that Aretaeus and Charixenus (lucky dogs!) had come in for:
‘Eudamidas,’ as they expressed it, ‘was apparently to have a death-
interest in the property of the legatees.’ However, the latter had
no sooner heard the will read, than they proceeded to execute the
testator’s intentions. Charixenus only survived Eudamidas by five
days: but Aretaeus, most generous of heirs, accepted the double
bequest, is supporting the aged mother at this day, and has only
lately given the daughter in marriage, allowing to her and to his
own daughter portions of 500 pounds each, out of his whole property
of 1,250 pounds; the two marriages were arranged to take place on
the same day. What do you think of him, Toxaris? This is something
like friendship, is it not,—to accept such a bequest as this, and
to show such respect for a friend’s last wishes? May we pass this
as one of my five?

_Tox_. Excellent as was the behaviour of Aretaeus, I admire
still more Eudamidas’s confidence in his friends. It shows that he
would have done as much for them; even if nothing had been said
about it in their wills, he would have been the first to come
forward and claim the inheritance as natural heir.

_Mne_. Very true. And now I come to Number Four—Zenothemis of
Massilia, son of Charmoleos. He was pointed out to me when I was in
Italy on public business: a fine, handsome man, and to all
appearance well off. But by his side (he was just driving away on a
journey) sat his wife, a woman of most repulsive appearance; all
her right side was withered; she had lost one eye; in short, she
was a positive fright. I expressed my surprise that a man in the
prime of manly beauty should endure to have such a woman seated by
him. My informant, who was a Massiliot himself, and knew how the
marriage had come about, gave me all the particulars. ‘The father
of this unsightly woman,’ he said, ‘was Menecrates; and he and
Zenothemis were friends in days when both were men of wealth and
rank. The property of Menecrates, however, was afterwards
confiscated by the Six Hundred, and he himself disfranchised, on
the ground that he had proposed an unconstitutional measure; this
being the regular penalty in Massilia for such offences. The
sentence was in itself a heavy blow to Menecrates, and it was
aggravated by the sudden change from wealth to poverty and from
honour to dishonour. But most of all he was troubled about this
daughter: she was now eighteen years old, and it was time that he
found her a husband; yet with her unfortunate appearance it was not
probable that any one, however poor or obscure, would have taken
her, even with all the wealth her father had possessed previous to
his sentence; it was said, too, that she was subject to fits at
every increase of the moon. He was bewailing his hard lot to
Zenothemis, when the latter interrupted him: “Menecrates,” he said,
“be sure that you shall want for nothing, and that your daughter
shall find a match suitable to her rank.” So saying, he took his
friend by the hand, brought him into his house, assigned him a
share of his great wealth, and ordered a banquet to be prepared, at
which he entertained Menecrates and his friends, giving the former
to understand that he had prevailed upon one of his acquaintance to
marry the girl. When dinner was over, and libations had been poured
to the Gods, Zenothemis filled a goblet and passed it to
Menecrates: “Accept,” he cried, “from your son-in-law the cup of
friendship. This day I wed your daughter Cydimache. The dowry I
have had long since; 60,000 pounds was the sum.” _“You?”_
exclaimed Menecrates; “Heaven forbid that I should be so mad as to
suffer you, in the pride of your youth, to be yoked to this
unfortunate girl!” But even while he spoke, Zenothemis was
conducting his bride to the marriage-chamber, and presently
returned to announce that she was his wedded wife. Since that day,
he has lived with her on the most affectionate terms; and you see
for yourself that he takes her about with him wherever he goes. As
to his being ashamed of his wife, one would rather 26 suppose that
he was proud of her; and his conduct in this respect shows how
lightly he esteems beauty and wealth and reputation, in comparison
with friendship and his friend; for Menecrates is not less his
friend because the Six Hundred have condemned him. To be sure,
Fortune has already given him one compensation: his ugly wife has
borne him a most beautiful child. Only a few days ago, he carried
his child into the Senate-house, crowned with an olive-wreath, and
dressed in black, to excite the pity of the senators on his
grandfather’s behalf: the babe smiled upon them, and clapped his
little hands together, which so moved the senators that they
repealed the sentence against Menecrates, who is now reinstated in
his rights, thanks to the pleadings of his tiny advocate.’

Such was the Massiliot’s story. As you see, it was no slight
service that Zenothemis rendered to his friend; I fancy there are
not many Scythians who would do the same; they are said to be very
nice even in their selection of concubines.

I have still one friend to produce, and I think none is more worthy
of remembrance than Demetrius of Sunium. He and Antiphilus of the
deme of Alopece had been playmates in their childhood, and grown up
side by side. They subsequently took ship for Egypt, and carried on
their studies there together, Demetrius practising the Cynic
philosophy under the famous sophist of Rhodes, while Antiphilus, it
seems, was to be a doctor. Well, on one occasion Demetrius had gone
up country to see the Pyramids, and the statue of Memnon. He had
heard it said that the Pyramids in spite of their great height cast
no shadow, and that a sound proceeded from the statue at sunrise:
all this he wished to see and hear for himself, and he had now been
away up the Nile six months. During his absence, Antiphilus, who
had remained behind (not liking the idea of the heat and the long
journey), became involved in troubles which required all the
assistance that faithful friendship could have rendered. He had a
Syrian slave, whose name was also Syrus. This man had made common
cause with a number of temple-robbers, had forced his way with them
into the temple of Anubis, and robbed the God of a pair of golden
cups, a caduceus, also of gold, some silver images of Cynocephali
and other treasures; all of which the rest entrusted to Syrus’s
charge. Later on they were caught trying to dispose of some of
their booty, and were taken up; and being put on the rack,
immediately confessed the whole truth. They were accordingly
conducted to Antiphilus’s house, where they produced the stolen
treasure from a dark corner under a bed. Syrus was immediately
arrested, and his master Antiphilus with him: the latter being
dragged away from the very presence of his teacher during lecture-
time. There was none to help him: his former acquaintances turned
their backs on the desecrator of Anubis’s temple, and made it a
matter of conscience that they had ever sat at the same table with
him. As to his other two servants, they got together all his
belongings, and ran off.

Antiphilus had now lain long in captivity. He was looked upon as
the vilest criminal of all in the prison; and the native gaoler, a
superstitious man, considered that he was avenging the God’s wrongs
and securing his favour by harsh treatment of Antiphilus. His
attempts to clear himself of the charge of sacrilege only served to
set him in the light of a hardened offender, and materially to
increase the detestation in which he was held. His health was
beginning to give way under the strain, and no wonder: his bed was
the bare ground, and all night he was unable so much as to stretch
his legs, which were then secured in the stocks; in the daytime,
the collar and one manacle sufficed, but at night he had to submit
to being bound hand and foot. The stench, too, and the closeness of
the dungeon, in which so many prisoners were huddled together
gasping for breath, and the difficulty of getting any sleep, owing
to the clanking of chains,—all combined to make the situation
intolerable to one who was quite unaccustomed to endure such
hardships. At last, when Antiphilus had given up all hope, and
refused to take any nourishment, Demetrius arrived, ignorant of all
that had passed in his absence. He no sooner learnt the truth, than
he flew to the prison. It was now evening, and he was refused
admittance, the gaoler having long since bolted the door and
retired to rest, leaving his slaves to keep guard. Morning came,
and after many entreaties he was allowed to enter. Suffering had
altered Antiphilus beyond recognition, and for long Demetrius
sought him in vain: like men who seek their slain relatives on the
day after a battle, when death has already changed them, he went
from prisoner to prisoner, examining each in turn; and had he not
called on Antiphilus by name, it would have been long before he
could have recognized him, so great was the change that misery had
wrought. Antiphilus heard the voice, and uttered a cry; then, as
his friend approached, he brushed the dry matted hair from his
face, and revealed his identity. At the unexpected sight of one
another, the two friends instantly fell down in a swoon. But
presently Demetrius recovered, and raised Antiphilus from the
ground: he obtained from him an exact account of all that had
happened, and bade him be of good cheer; then, tearing his cloak in
two, he threw one half over himself, and gave the other to his
friend, first ripping off the squalid, threadbare rags in which he
was clothed. From that hour, Demetrius was unfailing in his
attendance. From early morning till noon, he hired himself out as a
porter to the merchants in the harbour, and thus made a
considerable wage. Returning to the prison when his work was over,
he would give a part of his earnings to the gaoler, thus securing
his obsequious goodwill, and the rest sufficed him amply for
supplying his friend’s needs. For the remainder of the day, he
would stay by Antiphilus, administering consolation to him; and at
nightfall made himself a litter of leaves near the prison door, and
there took his rest. So things went on for some time, Demetrius
having free entrance to the prison, and Antiphilus’s misery being
much alleviated thereby. But presently a certain robber died in the
gaol, apparently from the effects of poison; a strict watch was
kept, and admittance was refused to all applicants alike, to the
great distress of Demetrius, who could think of no other means of
obtaining access to his friend than by going to the Prefect and
professing complicity in the temple robbery. As the result of this
declaration, he was immediately led off to prison, and with great
difficulty prevailed upon the gaoler after many entreaties to place
him next to Antiphilus, and under the same collar. It was now that
his devotion to his friend appeared in the strongest light. Ill
though he was himself, he thought nothing of his own sufferings:
his only care was to lighten the affliction of his friend, and to
procure him as much rest as possible; and the companionship in
misery certainly lightened their load. Finally an event happened
which brought their misfortunes to an end. One of the prisoners had
somehow got hold of a file. He took a number of the others into his
confidence, filed through the chain which held them together by
means of their collars, and set all at liberty. The guards being
few were easily slain; and the prisoners burst out of the gaol
_en masse_. They then scattered, and each took refuge for the
moment where he could, most of them being subsequently recaptured.
Demetrius and Antiphilus, however, remained in the prison, and even
secured Syrus when he was about to escape. The next morning the
Prefect, hearing what had happened, sent men in pursuit of the
other prisoners, and Demetrius and Antiphilus, being summoned to
his presence, were released from their fetters, and commended for
not having run away like the rest. The friends, however, declined
to accept their dismissal on such terms: Demetrius protested loudly
against the injustice which would be done to them if they were to
pass for criminals, who owed their discharge to mercy, or to their
discretion in not having run away. They insisted that the judge
should examine carefully into the facts of their case. He at length
did so; and was convinced of their innocence, did justice to their
characters, and, with a warm commendation of Demetrius’s conduct,
dismissed them; but not before he had expressed his regret at the
unjust sentence under which they had suffered, and made each of
them a present from his own purse,—400 pounds to Antiphilus, and
twice that sum to Demetrius. Antiphilus is still in Egypt at the
present time, but Demetrius went off to India to visit the
Brahmins, leaving his 800 pounds with Antiphilus. He could now, he
said, leave his friend with a clear conscience. His own wants were
simple, and as long as they continued so, he had no need of money:
on the other hand, Antiphilus, in his present easy circumstances,
had as little need of a friend.

See, Toxaris, what a Greek friend can do! You were so hard just now
upon our rhetorical vanity, that I forbear to give you the
admirable pleadings of Demetrius in court: not one word did he say
in his own behalf; all was for Antiphilus; he wept and implored,
and sought to take all the guilt upon himself; till at last the
confession of Syrus under torture cleared them both. These loyal
friends whose stories I have related were the first that occurred
to my memory; where I have given five instances, I might have given
fifty. And now I am silent: it is your turn to speak. I need not
tell you to make the most of your Scythians, and bring them out
triumphant if you can: you will do that for your own sake, if you
set any value on that right hand of yours. Quit you, then, like a
man. You would look foolish if, after your truly professional
panegyric of Orestes and Pylades, your art were to fail you in your
country’s need.

_Tox_. I honour you for your disinterested encouragement:
apparently you are under no uneasiness as to the loss of your
tongue, in the event of my winning. Well, I will begin: and you
will get no flowery language from me; it is not our Scythian way,
especially when the deeds we handle dwarf description. Be prepared
for something very different from the subjects of your own eulogy:
here will be no marryings of ugly and dowerless women, no five-
hundred-pound-portionings of friends’ daughters, nor even
surrenderings of one’s person to gaolers, with the certain prospect
of a speedy release. These are very cheap manifestations; the
lofty, the heroic, is altogether wanting. I have to speak of blood
and war and death for friendship’s sake; you will learn that all
you have related is child’s-play, when compared with the deeds of
the Scythians. After all, it is natural enough: what should you do
but admire these trifles? Living in the midst of peace, you have no
scope for the exhibition of an exalted friendship, just as in a
calm we cannot tell a good pilot from a bad; we must wait till a
storm comes; then we know. We, on the contrary, live in a state of
perpetual warfare, now invading, now receding, now contending for
pasturage or booty. There is the true sphere of friendship; and
there is the reason that its ties among us are drawn so close;
friendship we hold to be the one invincible, irresistible weapon.

But before I begin, I should like to describe to you our manner of
making friends. Friendships are not formed with us, as with you,
over the wine-cups, nor are they determined by considerations of
age or neighbourhood. We wait till we see a brave man, capable of
valiant deeds, and to him we all turn our attention. Friendship
with us is like courtship with you: rather than fail of our object,
and undergo the disgrace of a rejection, we are content to urge our
suit patiently, and to give our constant attendance. At length a
friend is accepted, and the engagement is concluded with our most
solemn oath: ‘to live together and if need be to die for one
another.’ That vow is faithfully kept: once let the friends draw
blood from their fingers into a cup, dip the points of their swords
therein, and drink of that draught together, and from that moment
nothing can part them. Such a treaty of friendship may include
three persons, but no more: a man of many friends we consider to be
no better than a woman who is at the service of every lover; we
feel no further security in a friendship that is divided between so
many objects.

I will commence with the recent story of Dandamis. In our conflict
with the Sauromatae, Dandamis’s friend Amizoces had been taken
captive,—oh, but first I must take the Scythian oath, as we agreed
at the start. I swear by Wind and Scimetar that I will speak
nothing but truth of the Scythian friendships.

_Mne_. You need not have troubled to swear, as far as I am
concerned. However, you showed judgement in not swearing by a God.

_Tox_. What can you mean? Wind and Scimetar not Gods? Are you
now to learn that life and death are the highest considerations
among mankind? When we swear by Wind and Scimetar, we do so because
Wind is the cause of life and Scimetar of death.

_Mne_. On that principle, you get a good many other Gods
besides Scimetar, and as good as he: there is Arrow, and Spear, and
Hemlock, and Halter, and so on. Death is a God who assumes many
shapes; numberless are the roads that lead into his presence.

_Tox_. Now you are just trying to spoil my story with these
quibbling objections. I gave _you_ a fair hearing.

_Mne_. You are quite right, Toxaris; it shall not occur again,
be easy on that score. I’ll be so quiet, you would never know I was
here at all.

_Tox_. Four days after Dandamis and Amizoces had shared the
cup of blood, the Sauromatae invaded our territory with 10,000
horse, their infantry being estimated at three times that number.
The invasion was unexpected, and we were completely routed; many of
our warriors were slain, and the rest taken captive, with the
exception of a few who managed to swim across to the opposite bank
of the river, on which half our host was encamped, with a part of
the waggons. The reason of this arrangement I do not know; but our
leaders had seen good to divide our camp between the two banks of
the Tanais. The enemy at once set to work to secure their booty and
collect the captives; they plundered the camp, and took possession
of the waggons, most of them with their occupants; and we had the
mortification of seeing our wives and concubines mishandled before
our very eyes. Amizoces was among the prisoners, and while he was
being dragged along he called upon his friend by name, to witness
his captivity and to remember the cup of blood. Dandamis heard him,
and without a moment’s delay plunged into the river in the sight of
all, and swam across to the enemy. The Sauromatae rushed upon him,
and were about to transfix him with their raised javelins, when he
raised the cry of Zirin. The man who pronounces that word is safe
from their weapons: it indicates that he is the bearer of ransom,
and he is received accordingly. Being conducted into the presence
of their chief, he demanded the liberation of Amizoces, and was
told in reply, that his friend would only be released upon payment
of a high ransom. ‘All that was once mine,’ said Dandamis, ‘has
become your booty: but if one who is stripped of all can have
anything yet left to give, it is at your disposal. Name your terms:
take me, if you will, in his place, and use me as seems best to
you.’ ‘To detain the person of one who comes with the Zirin on his
lips is out of the question: but you may take back your friend on
paying me a part of your possessions.’ ‘What will you have?’ asked
Dandamis. ‘Your eyes,’ was the reply. Dandamis submitted: his eyes
were plucked out, and the Sauromatae had their ransom. He returned
leaning on his friend, and they swam across together, and reached
us in safety.

There was comfort for all of us in this act of Dandamis. Our
defeat, it seemed, was no defeat, after all: our most precious
possessions had escaped the hands of our enemies; loyal friendship,
noble resolution, these were still our own. On the Sauromatae it
had the contrary effect: they did not at all like the idea of
engaging with such determined adversaries on equal terms; gaining
an advantage of them by means of a surprise was quite another
matter. The end of it was, that when night came on they left behind
the greater part of the herds, burnt the waggons, and beat a hasty
retreat. As for Amizoces, he could not endure to see, when Dandamis
was blind: he blinded himself, and the two now sit at home,
supported in all honour at the public expense.

Can you match that, friend? I think not, though I should give you
ten new chances on the top of your five; ay, and release you from
your oath, too, for that matter, leaving you free to exaggerate as
much as you choose. Besides, I have given you just the bare facts.
Now, if _you_ had been telling Dandamis’s story, what embroidery we
should have had! The supplications of Dandamis, the blinding
process, his remarks on the occasion, the circumstances of his
return, the effusive greetings of the Scythians, and all the _ad
captandum_ artifices that you Greeks understand so well.

And now let me introduce you to another friend, not inferior to
Dandamis,—a cousin of Amizoces, Belitta by name. Belitta was once
hunting with his friend Basthes, when the latter was torn from his
horse by a lion. Already the brute had fallen upon him, and was
clutching him by the throat and beginning to tear him to pieces,
when Belitta, leaping to earth, rushed upon him from behind, and
attempted to drag him off, and to turn his rage upon himself,
thrusting his hands into the brute’s mouth, and doing his best to
extricate Basthes from those teeth. He succeeded at last: the lion,
abandoning his half dead prey, turned upon Belitta, grappled with
him, and slew him; but not before Belitta had plunged a scimetar
into his breast. Thus all three died together; and we buried them,
the two friends in one grave, the lion in another close by.

For my third instance, I shall give you the friendship of Macentes,
Lonchates, and Arsacomas. This Arsacomas had been on a visit to
Leucanor, king of Bosphorus, in connexion with the tribute annually
paid to us by that country, which tribute was then three months
overdue; and while there he had fallen in love with Mazaea, the
king’s daughter. Mazaea was an extremely fine woman, and Arsacomas,
seeing her at the king’s table, had been much smitten with her
charms. The question of the tribute was at length settled,
Arsacomas had his answer, and the king was now entertaining him
prior to his departure. It is the custom for suitors in that
country to make their proposals at table, stating at the same time
their qualifications. Now in the present case there were a number
of suitors—kings and sons of kings, among whom were Tigrapates the
prince of the Lazi and Adyrmachus the chief of the Machlyans. What
each suitor has to do is, first to declare his intentions, and
quietly take his seat at table with the rest; then, when dinner is
over, he calls for a goblet, pours libation upon the table, and
makes his proposal for the lady’s hand, saying whatever he can for
himself in the way of birth, wealth, and dominion. Many suitors,
then, had already preferred their request in due form, enumerating
their realms and possessions, when at last Arsacomas called for a
cup. He did not make a libation, because it is not the Scythian
custom to do so; we should consider it an insult to Heaven to pour
away good wine: instead, he drank it all off at one draught, and
then addressed the king. ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘give _me_ your
daughter Mazaea to wife: if wealth and possessions count for
anything, I am a fitter husband for her than these.’ Leucanor was
surprised: he knew that Arsacomas was but a poor commoner among the
Scythians. ‘What herds, what waggons have you, Arsacomas?’ he
asked; ‘these are the wealth of your people.’ ‘Waggons and herds I
have none,’ was Arsacomas’s reply: ‘but I have two excellent
friends, whose like you will not find in all Scythia.’ His answer
only excited ridicule; it was attributed to drunkenness, and no
further notice was taken of him. Adyrmachus was preferred to the
other suitors, and was to take his bride away the next morning to
his Maeotian home. Arsacomas on his return informed his friends of
the slight that had been put upon him by the king, and of the
ridicule to which he had been subjected on account of his supposed
poverty. ‘And yet,’ he added, ‘I told him of my wealth: told him
that I had the friendship of Lonchates and Macentes, a more
precious and more lasting possession than his kingdom of Bosphorus.
But he made light of it; he jeered at us; and gave his daughter to
Adyrmachus the Machlyan, because he had ten golden cups, and eighty
waggons of four seats, and a number of sheep and oxen. It seems
that herds and lumbering waggons and superfluous beakers are to
count for more than brave men. My friends, I am doubly wounded: I
love Mazaea, and I cannot forget the humiliation which I have
suffered before so many witnesses, and in which you are both
equally involved. Ever since we were united in friendship, are we
not one flesh? are not our joys and our sorrows the same? If this
be so, each of us has his share in this disgrace.’ ‘Not only so,’
rejoined Lonchates; ‘each of us labours under the whole ignominy of
the affront.’ ‘And what is to be our course?’ asked Macentes. ‘We
will divide the work,’ replied the other. ‘I for my part undertake
to present Arsacomas with the head of Leucanor: you must bring him
his bride.’ ‘I agree. And you, Arsacomas, can stay at home; and as
we are likely to want an army before we have done, you must be
getting together horses and arms, and raise what men you can, A man
like you will have no difficulty in getting plenty of people to
join him, and there are all our relations; besides, you can sit on
the ox-hide.’ This being settled, Lonchates set off just as he was
for the Bosphorus, and Macentes for Machlyene, each on horseback;
while Arsacomas remained behind, consulting with his acquaintance,
raising forces from among the relations of the three, and, finally,
taking his seat on the ox-hide.

Our custom of the hide is as follows. When a man has been injured
by another, and desires vengeance, but feels that he is no match
for his opponent, he sacrifices an ox, cuts up the flesh and cooks
it, and spreads out the hide upon the ground. On this hide he takes
his seat, holding his hands behind him, so as to suggest that his
arms are tied in that position, this being the natural attitude of
a suppliant among us. Meanwhile, the flesh of the ox has been laid
out; and the man’s relations and any others who feel so disposed
come up and take a portion thereof, and, setting their right foot
on the hide, promise whatever assistance is in their power: one
will engage to furnish and maintain five horsemen, another ten, a
third some larger number; while others, according to their ability,
promise heavy or light-armed infantry, and the poorest, who have
nothing else to give, offer their own personal services. The number
of persons assembled on the hide is sometimes very considerable;
nor could any troops be more reliable or more invincible than those
which are collected in this manner, being as they are under a vow;
for the act of stepping on to the hide constitutes an oath. By this
means, then, Arsacomas raised something like 5,000 cavalry and
20,000 heavy and light armed.

Meanwhile, Lonchates arrived unknown in Bosphorus, and presented
himself co the king, who was occupied at the moment in affairs of
state. ‘I come,’ he said, ‘on public business from Scythia: but I
have also a private communication of high import to make to your
Majesty.’ The king bade him proceed. ‘As to my public errand, it is
the old story: we protest against your herdsmen’s crossing the
Rocks and encroaching on the plains. And with reference to the
robbers of whom you complain, I am instructed to say that our
government is not responsible for their incursions, which are the
work of private individuals, actuated merely by the love of booty;
accordingly, you are at liberty to punish as many of them as you
can secure, And now for my own news. You will shortly be invaded by
a large host under Arsacomas the son of Mariantas, who was lately
at your court as an ambassador. I suppose the cause of his
resentment is your refusing him your daughter’s hand. He has now
been on the ox-hide for seven days, and has got together a
considerable force.’ ‘I had heard,’ exclaimed Leucanor, ‘that an
army was being raised on the hide: but who was raising it, and what
was its destination, I had no idea.’ ‘You know now,’ said
Lonchates. ‘Arsacomas is a personal enemy of mine: the superior
esteem in which I am held, and the preference shown for me by our
elders, are things which he cannot forgive. Now promise me your
other daughter Barcetis: apart from my present services, I shall be
no discreditable son-in-law: promise me this, and in no long time I
will return bringing you the head of Arsacomas.’ ‘I promise,’ cried
the king, in great perturbation; for he realized the provocation he
had given to Arsacomas, and had a wholesome respect for the
Scythians at all times. ‘Swear,’ insisted Lonchates, ‘that you will
not go back from your promise.’ The king was already raising up his
hand to Heaven, when the other interrupted him. ‘Wait!’ he
exclaimed; ‘not here! these people must not know what is the
subject of our oath. Let us go into the temple of Ares yonder, and
swear with closed doors, where none may hear. If Arsacomas should
get wind of this, I am likely to be offered up as a preliminary
sacrifice; he has a good number of men already.’ ‘To the temple,
then, let us go,’ said the king; and he ordered the guards to
remain aloof, and forbade any one to approach the temple unless
summoned by him. As soon as they were inside, and the guards had
withdrawn, Lonchates drew his sword, and putting his left hand on
the king’s mouth to prevent his crying out, plunged it into his
breast; then, cutting off his head, he went out from the temple
carrying it under his cloak; affecting all the time to be speaking
to the king, and promising that he would not be long, as if the
king had sent him on some errand. He thus succeeded in reaching the
place where he had left his horse tethered, leapt on to his back,
and rode off into Scythia. There was no pursuit: the people of
Bosphorus took some time to discover what had happened; and then
they were occupied with disputes as to the succession. Thus
Lonchates fulfilled his promise, and handed the head of Leucanor to
Arsacomas.

The news of this reached Macentes while he was on his way to
Machlyene, and on his arrival there he was the first to announce
the king’s death. ‘You, Adyrmachus,’ he added, ‘are his son-in-law,
and are now summoned to the throne. Ride on in advance, and
establish your claim while all is still unsettled. Your bride can
follow with the waggons; the presence of Leucanor’s daughter will
be of assistance to you in securing the support of the Bosphorans.
I myself am an Alanian, and am related to this lady by the mother’s
side: Leucanor’s wife, Mastira, was of my family. I now come to you
from Mastira’s brothers in Alania: they would have you make the
best of your way to Bosphorus at once, or you will find your crown
on the head of Eubiotus, Leucanor’s bastard brother, who is a
friend to Scythia, and detested by the Alanians.’ In language and
dress, Macentes resembled an Alanian; for in these respects there
is no difference between Scythians and Alanians, except that the
Alanians do not wear such long hair as we do. Macentes had
completed the resemblance by cropping his hair to the right
shortness, and was thus enabled to pass for a kinsman of Mastira
and Mazaea. ‘And now, Adyrmachus,’ he concluded, ‘I am ready to go
with you to Bosphorus; or, if you prefer it, I will escort your
bride.’ ‘If you will do the latter,’ replied Adyrmachus, ‘I shall
be particularly obliged, since you are Mazaea’s kinsman. If you go
with us, it is but one horseman more; whereas no one could be such
a suitable escort for my wife.’ And so it was settled: Adyrmachus
rode off, and left Mazaea, who was still a maid, in the care of
Macentes. During the day, Macentes accompanied Mazaea in the
waggon: but at nightfall he placed her on horseback (he had taken
care that there should be a horseman in attendance), and, mounting
behind her, abandoned his former course along the Maeotian Lake,
and struck off into the interior, keeping the Mitraean Mountains on
his right. He allowed Mazaea some time for rest, and completed the
whole journey from Machlyene to Scythia on the third day; his horse
stood still for a few moments after arrival, and then dropped down
dead. ‘Behold,’ said Macentes, presenting Mazaea to Arsacomas,
‘behold your promised bride.’ Arsacomas, amazed at so unexpected a
sight, was beginning to express his gratitude: but Macentes bade
him hold his peace. ‘You speak,’ he exclaimed, ‘as if you and I
were different persons, when you thank me for what I have done. It
is as if my left hand should say to my right: Thank you for tending
my wound; thank you for your generous sympathy with my pain. That
would be no more absurd than for us—who have long been united, and
have become (so far as such a thing may be) one flesh—to make such
ado because one part of us has done its duty by the whole; the limb
is but serving its own interest in promoting the welfare of the
body.’ And that was how Macentes received his friend’s thanks.

Adyrmachus, on hearing of the trick that had been played upon him,
did not pursue his journey to Bosphorus; indeed, Eubiotus was
already on the throne, having been summoned thither from his home
in Sarmatia. He therefore returned to his own country, collected a
large army, and marched across the mountains into Scythia. He was
presently followed by Eubiotus himself, at the head of a
miscellaneous army of Greeks, together with 20,000 each of his
Alanian and Sarmatian allies. The two joined forces, and the result
was an army of 90,000 men, one third of whom were mounted bowmen.
We Scythians (I say _we_, because I myself took part in this
enterprise, and was maintaining a hundred horse on the hide)—we
Scythians then, numbering in all not much less than 30,000 men,
including cavalry, awaited their onset, under the command of
Arsacomas. As soon as we saw them approaching, we too advanced,
sending on our cavalry ahead. After a long and obstinate
engagement, our lines were broken, and we began to give ground; and
finally our whole army was cut clean in two. One half had not
suffered a decisive defeat; with these it was rather a retreat than
a flight, nor did the Alanians venture to follow up their advantage
for any distance. But the other and smaller division was completely
surrounded by the Alanians and Machlyans, and was being shot down
on every side by the copious discharge of arrows and javelins; the
position became intolerable, and most of our men were beginning to
throw down their arms. In this latter division were Lonchates and
Macentes. They had borne the brunt of the attack, and both were
wounded: Lonchates had a spear-thrust in his thigh, and Macentes,
besides a cut on the head from an axe, had had his shoulder damaged
by a pike. Arsacomas, seeing their condition (he was with us in the
other division), could not endure the thought of turning his back
on his friends: plunging the spurs into his horse, and raising a
shout, he rode through the midst of the enemy, with his scimetar
raised on high. The Machlyans were unable to withstand the fury of
his onset; their ranks divided, and made way for him to pass.
Having rescued his friends from their danger, he rallied the rest
of the troops; and charging upon Adyrmachus brought down the
scimetar on his neck, and cleft him in two as far as the waist.
Adyrmachus once slain, the whole of the Machlyans and Alanians soon
scattered, and the Greeks followed their example. Thus did we turn
defeat into victory; and had not night come to interrupt us, we
should have pursued the fugitives for a considerable distance,
slaying as we went. The next day came messengers from the enemy
suing for reconciliation, the Bosphorans undertaking to double
their tribute, and the Machlyans to leave hostages; whilst the
Alanians promised to expiate their guilt by reducing the Sindians
to submission, that tribe having been for some time in revolt
against us. These terms we accepted, at the instance of Arsacomas
and Lonchates, who conducted the negotiations and concluded the
peace.

Such, Mnesippus, are the deeds that Scythians will do for
friendship’s sake.

_Mne_. Truly deeds of high emprise; quite a legendary look
about them. With Wind’s and Scimetar’s good leave, I think a man
might be excused for doubting their truth.

_Tox_. Now, honestly, Mnesippus, does not that doubt look a
little like envy? However, doubt if you will: that shall not deter
me from relating other Scythian exploits of the same kind which
have happened within my experience.

_Mne_. Brevity, friend, is all I ask. Your story is apt to run
away with you. Up hill and down dale you go, through Scythia and
Machlyene, off again to Bosphorus, then back to Scythia, till my
taciturnity is exhausted.

_Tox_. I am schooled. Brevity you shall have; I will not run
you off your ears this time. My next story shall be of a service
rendered to myself, by my friend Sisinnes. Induced by the desire
for Greek culture, I had left my home and was on my way to Athens.
The ship put in at Amastris, which comes in the natural route from
Scythia, being on the shore of the Euxine, not far from Carambis.
Sisinnes, who had been my friend from childhood, bore me company on
this voyage. We had transferred all our belongings from the ship to
an inn near the harbour; and whilst we were busy in the market,
suspecting nothing wrong, some thieves had forced the door of our
room and carried off everything, not leaving us even enough to go
on with for that day. Well, when we got back and found what had
happened, we thought it was no use trying to get legal redress from
our landlord, or from the neighbours; there were too many of them;
and if we _had_ told our story,—how we had been robbed of
four hundred darics and our clothes and rugs and everything, most
people would only have thought we were making a fuss about a
trifle. So we had to think what was to be done: here we were,
absolutely destitute, in a foreign country. For my part, I thought
I might as well put a sword through my ribs there and then, and
have done with it, rather than endure the humiliation that might be
forced upon us by hunger and thirst. Sisinnes took a more cheerful
view, and implored me to do nothing of the kind: ‘I shall think of
something,’ he said, ‘and we may do well yet.’ For the moment, he
made enough to get us some food by carrying up timber from the
harbour. The next morning, he took a walk in the market, where it
seems he saw a company of fine likely young fellows, who as it
turned out were hired as gladiators, and were to perform two days
after. He found out all about them, and then came back to me.
‘Toxaris,’ he exclaimed, ‘consider your poverty at an end! In two
days’ time, I will make a rich man of you.’ We got through those
two days somehow, and then came the show, in which we took our
places as spectators, Sisinnes bidding me prepare myself for all
the novel delights of a Greek amphitheatre. The first thing we saw
on sitting down was a number of wild beasts: some of them were
being assailed by javelins, others hunted by dogs, and others again
were let loose upon certain men who were tied hand and foot, and
whom we supposed to be criminals. The gladiators next made their
appearance. The herald led forward a strapping young fellow, and
announced that any one who was prepared to stand up against him
might step into the arena and take his reward, which would be 400
pounds. Sisinnes rose from his seat, jumped down into the ring,
expressed his willingness to fight, and demanded arms. He received
the money, and brought it to me. ‘If I win,’ he said, ‘we will go
off together, and are amply provided for: if I fall, you will bury
me and return to Scythia.’ I was much moved.

He now received his arms, and put them on; with the exception,
however, of the helmet, for he fought bareheaded. He was the first
to be wounded, his adversary’s curved sword drawing a stream of
blood from his groin. I was half dead with fear. However, Sisinnes
was biding his time: the other now assailed him with more
confidence, and Sisinnes made a lunge at his breast, and drove the
sword clean through, so that his adversary fell lifeless at his
feet. He himself, exhausted by the loss of blood, sank down upon
the corpse, and life almost deserted him; but I ran to his
assistance, raised him up, and spoke words of comfort. The victory
was won, and he was free to depart; I therefore picked him up and
carried him home. My efforts were at last successful: he rallied,
and is living in Scythia to this day, having married my sister. He
is still lame, however, from his wound. Observe: this did not take
place in Machlyene, nor yet in Alania; there is no lack of
witnesses to the truth of the story this time; many an Amastrian
here in Athens would remember the fight of Sisinnes.

One more story, that of Abauchas, and I have done. Abauchas once
arrived in the capital of the Borysthenians, with his wife, of whom
he was extremely fond, and two children; one, a boy, was still at
the breast, the other was a girl of seven. With him also was his
friend Gyndanes, who was still suffering from the effects of a
wound he had received on the journey: they had been attacked by
some robbers, and Gyndanes in resisting them had been stabbed in
the thigh, and was still unable to stand on account of the pain.
One night they were all asleep in the upper story, when a
tremendous fire broke out; the whole building was wrapped in
flames, and every means of exit blocked. Abauchas started up, and
leaving his sobbing children, and shaking off his wife, who clung
to him and implored him to save her, he caught up his friend in his
arms, and just managed to force his way down without being utterly
consumed by the flames. His wife followed, carrying the boy, and
bade the girl come after her; but, scorched almost to a cinder, she
was compelled to drop the child from her arms, and barely succeeded
in leaping through the flames; the little girl too only just
escaped with her life. Abauchas was afterwards reproached with
having abandoned his own wife and children to rescue Gyndanes. ‘I
can beget other children easily enough,’ said he: ‘nor was it
certain how these would turn out: but it would be long before I got
such another friend as Gyndanes; of his affection I have been
abundantly satisfied by experience.’

There, Mnesippus, you have _my_ little selection. The next
thing is to settle whether my hand or your tongue is to be
amputated. Who is umpire?

_Mne_. Umpire we have none; we forgot that. I tell you what:
we have wasted our arrows this time, but some other day we will
appoint an arbitrator, and submit other friendships to his
judgement; and then off shall come your hand, or out shall come my
tongue, as the case may be. Perhaps, though, this is rather a
primitive way of doing things. As you seem to think a great deal of
friendship, and as I consider it to be the highest blessing of
humanity, what is there to prevent our vowing eternal friendship on
the spot? We shall both have the satisfaction of winning then, and
shall get a substantial prize into the bargain: two right hands
each instead of one, two tongues, four eyes, four feet;—everything
in duplicate. The union of two friends—or three, let us say—is
like Geryon in the pictures: a six-handed, three-headed individual;
my private opinion is, that there was not one Geryon, but three
Geryons, all acting in concert, as friends should.

_Tox_. Done with you, then.

_Mne_. And, Toxaris,—we will dispense with the blood-and-
scimetar ceremony. Our present conversation, and the similarity of
our aims, are a much better security than that sanguinary cup of
yours. Friendship, as I take it, should be voluntary, not
compulsory.

_Tox_. Well said. From this day, I am your friend, you mine; I
your guest here in Greece, you mine if ever you come to Scythia.

_Mne_. Scythia! I would go further than Scythia, to meet with
such friends as Toxaris’s narratives have shown him to be.




ZEUS CROSS-EXAMINED

_Cyniscus_. _Zeus_


_Cyn_. Zeus: I am not going to trouble you with requests for a
fortune or a throne; you get prayers enough of that sort from other
people, and from your habit of convenient deafness I gather that
you experience a difficulty in answering them. But there is one
thing I should like, which would cost you no trouble to grant.

_Zeus_. Well, Cyniscus? You shall not be disappointed, if your
expectations are as reasonable as you say.

_Cyn_. I want to ask you a plain question.

_Zeus_. Such a modest petition is soon granted; ask what you
will.

_Cyn_. Well then: you know your Homer and Hesiod, of course?
Is it all true that they sing of Destiny and the Fates—that
whatever they spin for a man at his birth must inevitably come
about?

_Zeus_. Unquestionably. Nothing is independent of their
control. From their spindle hangs the life of all created things;
whose end is predetermined even from the moment of their birth; and
that law knows no change.

_Cyn_. Then when Homer says, for instance, in another place,

  Lest unto Hell thou go, _outstripping Fate_,

he is talking nonsense, of course?

_Zeus_. Absolute nonsense. Such a thing is impossible: the law
of the Fates, the thread of Destiny, is over all. No; so long as
the poets are under the inspiration of the Muses, they speak truth:
but once let those Goddesses leave them to their own devices, and
they make blunders and contradict themselves. Nor can we blame
them: they are but men; how should they know truth, when the
divinity whose mouthpieces they were is departed from them?

_Cyn_. That point is settled, then. But there is another thing
I want to know. There are three Fates, are there not,—Clotho,
Lachesis, and Atropus?

_Zeus_. Quite so.

_Cyn_. But one also hears a great deal about Destiny and
Fortune. Who are they, and what is the extent of their power? Is it
equal to that of the Fates? or greater perhaps? People are always
talking about the insuperable might of Fortune and Destiny.

_Zeus_. It is not proper, Cyniscus, that you should know all.
But what made you ask me about the Fates?

_Cyn_. Ah, you must tell me one thing more first. Do the Fates
also control you Gods? Do _you_ depend from their thread?

_Zeus_. We do. Why do you smile?

_Cyn_. I was thinking of that bit in Homer, where he makes you
address the Gods in council, and threaten to suspend all the world
from a golden cord. You said, you know, that you would let the cord
down from Heaven, and all the Gods together, if they liked, might
take hold of it and try to pull you down, and they would never do
it: whereas you, if you had a mind to it, could easily pull them up,

  And Earth and Sea withal.

I listened to that passage with shuddering reverence; I was much
impressed with the idea of your strength. Yet now I understand that
you and your cord and your threats all depend from a mere cobweb.
It seems to me Clotho should be the one to boast: she has you
dangling from her distaff, like a sprat at the end of a fishing-
line.

_Zeus_. I do not catch the drift of your questions.

_Cyn_. Come, I will speak my mind; and in the name of Destiny
and the Fates take not my candour amiss. If the case stands thus,
if the Fates are mistresses of all, and their decisions
unalterable, then why do men sacrifice to _you_, and bring
hecatombs, and pray for good at _your_ hands? If our prayers
can neither save us from evil nor procure us any boon from Heaven,
I fail to see what we get for our trouble.

_Zeus_. These are nice questions! I see how it is,—you have
been with the sophists; accursed race! who would deny us all
concern in human affairs. Yes, these are just the points they
raise, impiously seeking to pervert mankind from the way of
sacrifice and prayer: it is all thrown away, forsooth! the Gods
take no thought for mankind; they have no power on the earth.—Ah
well; they will be sorry for it some day.

_Cyn_. Now, by Clotho’s own spindle, my questions are free
from all sophistic taint. How it has come about, I know not; but
one word has brought up another, and the end of it is—there is no
use in sacrifice. Let us begin again. I will put you a few more
questions; answer me frankly, but think before you speak, this
time.

_Zeus_. Well; if you have the time to waste on such
tomfoolery.

_Cyn_. Everything proceeds from the Fates, you say?

_Zeus_. Yes.

_Cyn_. And is it in your power to unspin what they have spun?

_Zeus_. It is not.

_Cyn_. Shall I proceed, or is the inference clear?

_Zeus_. Oh, clear enough. But you seem to think that people
sacrifice to us from ulterior motives; that they are driving a
bargain with us, _buying_ blessings, as it were: not at all;
it is a disinterested testimony to our superior merit.

_Cyn_. There you are, then. As you say, sacrifice answers no
useful purpose; it is just our good-natured way of acknowledging
your superiority. And mind you, if we had a sophist here, he would
want to know all about that superiority. You are our fellow slaves,
he would say; if the Fates are our mistresses, they are also yours.
Your immortality will not serve you; that only makes things worse.
We mortals, after all, are liberated by death: but for you there is
no end to the evil; that long thread of yours means eternal
servitude.

_Zeus_. But this eternity is an eternity of happiness; the
life of Gods is one round of blessings.

_Cyn_. Not all Gods’ lives. Even in Heaven there are distinctions,
not to say mismanagement. _You_ are happy, of course: you are king,
and you can haul up earth and sea as it were a bucket from the
well. But look at Hephaestus: a cripple; a common blacksmith. Look
at Prometheus: _he_ gets nailed up on Caucasus. And I need not
remind you that your own father lies fettered in Tartarus at this
hour. It seems, too, that Gods are liable to fall in love; and to
receive wounds; nay, they may even have to take service with mortal
men; witness your brother Posidon, and Apollo, servants to Laomedon
and to Admetus. I see no great happiness in all this; some of you I
dare say have a very pleasant time of it, but not so others. I
might have added, that you are subject to robbery like the rest of
us; your temples get plundered, and the richest of you becomes a
pauper in the twinkling of an eye. To more than one of you it has
even happened to be melted down, if he was a gold or a silver God.
All destiny, of course.

_Zeus_. Take care, Cyniscus: you are going too far. You will
repent of this one day.

_Cyn_. Spare your threats: you know that nothing can happen to
me, except what Fate has settled first. I notice, for instance,
that even temple-robbers do not always get punished; most of them,
indeed, slip through your hands. Not destined to be caught, I
suppose.

_Zeus_. I knew it! you are one of those who would abolish
Providence.

_Cyn_. You seem to be very much afraid of these gentlemen, for
some reason. Not one word can I say, but you must think I picked it
up from them. Oblige me by answering another question; I could
desire no better authority than yours. What is this Providence? Is
she a Fate too? or some greater, a mistress of the Fates?

_Zeus_. I have already told you that there are things which it
is not proper for you to know. You said you were only going to ask
me one question, instead of which you go on quibbling without end.
I see what it is you are at: you want to make out that we Gods take
no thought for human affairs.

_Cyn_. It is nothing to do with me: it was you who said just
now that the Fates ordained everything. Have you thought better of
it? Are you going to retract what you said? Are the Gods going to
push Destiny aside and make a bid for government?

_Zeus_. Not at all; but the Fates work _through us_.

_Cyn_. I see: you are their servants, their underlings. But
that comes to the same thing: it is still they who design; you are
only their tools, their instruments.

_Zeus_. How do you make that out?

_Cyn_. I suppose it is pretty much the same as with a carpenter’s
adze and drill: they do assist him in his work, but no one would
describe them as the workmen; we do not say that a ship has been
turned out by such and such an adze, or by such and such a drill;
we name the shipwright. In the same way, Destiny and the Fates are
the universal shipwrights, and you are their drills and adzes; and
it seems to me that instead of paying their respects and their
sacrifices to you, men ought to sacrifice to Destiny, and implore
_her_ favours; though even that would not meet the case, because I
take it that things are settled once and for all, and that the
Fates themselves are not at liberty to chop and change. If some one
gave the spindle a turn in the wrong direction, and undid all
Clotho’s work, Atropus would have something to say on the subject.

_Zeus_. So! You would deprive even the Fates of honour? You
seem determined to reduce all to one level. Well, we Gods have at
least one claim on you: we do prophesy and foretell what the Fates
haye disposed.

_Cyn_. Now even granting that you do, what is the use of
knowing what one has to expect, when one can by no possibility take
any precautions? Are you going to tell me that a man who finds out
that he is to die by a steel point can escape the doom by shutting
himself up? Not he. Fate will take him out hunting, and there will
be his steel: Adrastus will hurl his spear at the boar, miss the
brute, and get Croesus’s son; Fate’s inflexible law directs his
aim. The full absurdity of the thing is seen in the case of Laius:

  Seek not for offspring in the Gods’ despite;
  Beget a child, and thou begett’st thy slayer.

Was not this advice superfluous, seeing that the end must come?
Accordingly we find that the oracle does not deter Laius from
begetting a son, nor that son from being his slayer. On the whole,
I cannot see that your prophecies entitle you to reward, even
setting aside the obscurity of the oracles, which are generally
contrived to cut both ways. You omitted to mention, for instance,
whether Croesus—‘the Halys crossed’—should destroy his own or
Cyrus’s mighty realm.’ It might be either, so far as the oracle
goes.

_Zeus_. Apollo was angry with Croesus. When Croesus boiled
that lamb and tortoise together in the cauldron, he was making
trial of Apollo.

_Cyn_. Gods ought not to be angry. After all, I suppose it was
fated that the Lydian should misinterpret that oracle; his case
only serves to illustrate that general ignorance of the future,
which Destiny has appointed for mankind. At that rate, your
prophetic power too seems to be in her hands.

_Zeus_. You leave us nothing, then? We exercise no control, we
are not entitled to sacrifice, we are very drills and adzes. But
you may well despise me: why do I sit here listening to all this,
with my thunder-bolt beneath my arm?

_Cyn_. Nay, smite, if the thunder-bolt is my destiny. I shall
think none the worse of you; I shall know it is all Clotho’s doing;
I will not even blame the bolt that wounds me. And by the way—
talking of thunder-bolts—there is one thing I will ask you and
Destiny to explain; you can answer for her. Why is it that you
leave all the pirates and temple-robbers and ruffians and perjurers
to themselves, and direct your shafts (as you are always doing)
against an oak-tree or a stone or a harmless mast, or even an
honest, God-fearing traveller? ... No answer? Is this one of the
things it is not proper for me to know?

_Zeus_. It is, Cyniscus. You are a meddlesome fellow; I don’t
know where you picked up all these ideas.

_Cyn_. Well, I suppose I must not ask you all (Providence and
Destiny and you) why honest Phocion died in utter poverty and
destitution, like Aristides before him, while those two unwhipped
puppies, Callias and Alcibiades, and the ruffian Midias, and that
Aeginetan libertine Charops, who starved his own mother to death,
were all rolling in money? nor again why Socrates was handed over
to the Eleven instead of Meletus? nor yet why the effeminate
Sardanapalus was a king, and one high-minded Persian after another
went to the cross for refusing to countenance his doings? I say
nothing of our own days, in which villains and money-grubbers
prosper, and honest men are oppressed with want and sickness and a
thousand distresses, and can hardly call their souls their own.

_Zeus_. Surely you know, Cyniscus, what punishments await the
evil-doers after death, and how happy will be the lot of the
righteous?

_Cyn_. Ah, to be sure: Hades—Tityus—Tantalus. Whether there
is such a place as Hades, I shall be able to satisfy myself when I
die. In the meantime, I had rather live a pleasant life here, and
have a score or so of vultures at my liver when I am dead, than
thirst like Tantalus in this world, on the chance of drinking with
the heroes in the Isles of the Blest, and reclining in the fields
of Elysium.

_Zeus_. What! you doubt that there are punishments and rewards
to come? You doubt of that judgement-seat before which every soul
is arraigned?

_Cyn_. I _have_ heard mention of a judge in that connexion; one
Minos, a Cretan. Ah, yes, tell me about him: they say he is your
son?

_Zeus_. And what of him?

_Cyn_. Whom does he punish in particular?

_Zeus_. Whom but the wicked? Murderers, for instance, and
temple-robbers.

_Cyn_. And whom does he send to dwell with the heroes?

_Zeus_. Good men and God-fearing, who have led virtuous lives.

_Cyn_. Why?

_Zeus_. Because they deserve punishment and reward
respectively.

_Cyn_. Suppose a man commits a crime accidentally: does he
punish him just the same?

_Zeus_. Certainly not.

_Cyn_. Similarly, if a man involuntarily performed a good
action, he would not reward him?

_Zeus_. No.

_Cyn_. Then there is no one for him to reward or punish.

_Zeus_. How so?

_Cyn_. Why, we men do nothing of our own free will: we are
obeying an irresistible impulse,—that is, if there is any truth in
what we settled just now, about Fate’s being the cause of
everything. Does a man commit a murder? Fate is the murderess. Does
he rob a temple? He has her instructions for it. So if there is
going to be any justice in Minos’s sentences, he will punish
Destiny, not Sisyphus; Fate, not Tantalus. What harm did these men
do? They only obeyed orders.

_Zeus_. I am not going to speak to you any more. You are an
unscrupulous man; a sophist. I shall go away and leave you to
yourself.

_Cyn_. I wanted to ask you where the Fates lived; and how they
managed to attend to all the details of such a vast mass of
business, just those three. I do not envy them their lot; they must
have a busy time of it, with so much on their hands. Their destiny,
apparently, is no better than other people’s. I would not exchange
with them, if I had the choice; I had rather be poorer than I am,
than sit before such a spindleful, watching every thread.—But
never mind, if you would rather not answer. Your previous replies
have quite cleared up my doubts about Destiny and Providence; and
for the rest, I expect I was not destined to hear it.




ZEUS TRAGOEDUS


_Hermes. Hera. Colossus. Heracles. Athene. Posidon. Momus.
Hermagoras. Zeus. Aphrodite. Apollo, Timocles. Damis_

  _Herm_. Wherefore thus brooding, Zeus? wherefore apart,
  And palely pacing, as Earth’s sages use?
  Let me thy counsel know, thy cares partake;
  And find thy comfort in a faithful fool.

  _Ath_. Cronides, lord of lords, and all our sire,
  I clasp thy knees; grant thou what I require;
  A boon the lightning-eyed Tritonia asks:
  Speak, rend the veil thy secret thought that masks;
  Reveal what care thy mind within thee gnaws,
  Blanches thy cheek, and this deep moaning draws.

  _Zeus_. Speech hath no utterance of surpassing fear,
  Tragedy holds no misery or woe,
  But our divinest essence soon shall taste.

  _Ath_. Alas, how dire a prelude to thy tale!

  _Zeus_. O brood maleficent, teemed from Earth’s dark womb!
  And thou, Prometheus, how hast thou wrought me woe!

  _Ath_. Possess us; are not we thine own familiars?

  _Zeus_. With a whirr and a crash
  Let the levin-bolt dash—
   Ah, whither?

_Hera_. A truce to your passion, Zeus. _We_ have not these good
people’s gift for farce or recitation; _we_ have not swallowed
Euripides whole, and cannot play up to you. Do you suppose we do
not know how to account for your annoyance?

_Zeus_. Thou knowst not; else thy waitings had been loud.

_Hera_. Don’t tell me; it’s a love affair; that’s what’s the
matter with you. However, you won’t have any ‘wailings’ from me; I
am too much hardened to neglect. I suppose you have discovered some
new Danae or Semele or Europa whose charms are troubling you; and
so you are meditating a transformation into a bull or satyr, or a
descent through the roof into your beloved’s bosom as a shower of
gold; all the symptoms—your groans and your tears and your white
face—point to love and nothing else.

_Zeus_. Happy ignorance, that sees not what perils now forbid
love and such toys!

_Hera_. Is your name Zeus, or not? and, if so, what else can
possibly annoy you but love?

_Zeus_. Hera, our condition is most precarious; it is touch-
and-go, as they call it, whether we are still to enjoy reverence
and honour from the earth, or be utterly neglected and become of no
account.

_Hera_. Has Earth produced a new brood of giants? Have the
Titans broken their chains, overpowered their guards, and taken up
arms against us once more?

_Zeus_. Nay, fear not that; Hell threatens not the Gods.

_Hera_. What can the matter be, then? To hear you, one might
think it was Polus or Aristodemus, not Zeus; and why, pray, if
something of that sort is not bothering you?

_Zeus_. My dear, a discussion somehow arose yesterday between
Timocles the Stoic and Damis the Epicurean; there was a numerous
and respectable audience (which particularly annoyed me), and they
had an argument on the subject of Providence. Damis questioned the
existence of the Gods, and utterly denied their interest in or
government of events, while Timocles, good man, did his best to
champion our cause. A great crowd gathered round; but no conclusion
was reached. They broke up with an understanding that the inquiry
should be completed another day; and now they are all agog to see
which will win and prove his case. You all see how parlous and
precarious is our position, depending on a single mortal. These are
the alternatives for us: to be dismissed as mere empty names, or
(if Timocles prevails) to enjoy our customary honours.

_Hera_. This is really a serious matter; your ranting was not
so uncalled-for, Zeus.

_Zeus_. You fancied me thinking of some Danae or Antiope; and
this was the dread reality. Now, Hermes, Hera, Athene, what is our
course? We await your contribution to our plans.

_Herm_. My opinion is that an assembly be summoned and the
community taken into counsel.

_Hera_. And I concur.

_Ath_. Sire, I dissent entirely; you should not fill Heaven
with apprehensions, nor let your own uneasiness be visible, but
take private measures to assure Timocles’s victory and Damis’s
being laughed out of court.

_Herm_. It cannot be kept quiet, Zeus; the philosophers’
debate is public, and you will be accused of despotic methods, if
you maintain reserve on a matter of so great and general interest.

_Zeus_. Make proclamation and summon all, then. I approve your
judgement.

_Herm_. Here, assemble, all ye Gods; don’t waste time, come
along, here you are; we are going to have an important meeting.

_Zeus_. What, Hermes? so bald, so plain, so prosy an
announcement—on this momentous occasion?

_Herm_. Why, how would you like it done?

_Zeus_. Some metre, a little poetic sonority, would make the
style impressive, and they would be more likely to come.

_Herm_. Ah, Zeus, that is work for epic poets or reciters, and
I am no good at poetry. I should be sure to put in too many feet,
or leave out some, and spoil the thing; they would only laugh at my
rude verses. Why, I’ve known Apollo himself laughed at for some of
his oracles; and prophecy has the advantage of obscurity, which
gives the hearers something better to do than scanning verses.

_Zeus_. Well, well, Hermes, you can make lines from Homer the
chief ingredient of your composition; summon us in his words; you
remember them, of course.

_Herm_. I cannot say they are exactly on the tip of my tongue;
however, I’ll do my best:

  Let ne’er a God (tum, tum), nor eke a Goddess,
  Nor yet of Ocean’s rivers one be wanting,
  Nor nymphs; but gather to great Zeus’s council;
  And all that feast on glorious hecatombs,
  Yea, middle and lower classes of Divinity,
  Or nameless ones that snuff fat altar-fumes

_Zeus_. Good, Hermes; that is an excellent proclamation: see,
here they come pell-mell; now receive and place them in correct
precedence, according to their material or workmanship; gold in the
front row, silver next, then the ivory ones, then those of stone or
bronze. A cross-division will give precedence to the creations of
Phidias, Alcamenes, Myron, Euphranor, and artists of that calibre,
while the common inartistic jobs can be huddled together in the far
corner, hold their tongues, and just make up the rank and file of
our assembly.

_Herm_. All right; they shall have their proper places. But
here is a point: suppose one of them is gold, and heavy at that,
but not finely finished, quite amateurish and ill proportioned, in
fact—is he to take precedence of Myron’s and Polyclitus’s bronze,
or Phidias’s and Alcamenes’s marble? or is workmanship to count
most?

_Zeus_. It should by rights. Never mind, put the gold first.

_Herm_. I see; property qualification, comparative wealth, is
the test, not merit.—Gold to the front row, please.—Zeus, the
front row will be exclusively barbarian, I observe. You see the
peculiarity of the Greek contingent: they have grace and beauty and
artistic workmanship, but they are all marble or bronze—the most
costly of them only ivory with just an occasional gleam of gold,
the merest surface-plating; and even those are wood inside,
harbouring whole colonies of mice. Whereas Bendis here, Anubis
there, Attis next door, and Mithras and Men, are all of solid gold,
heavy and intrinsically precious.

_Pos_. Hermes, is it in order that this dog-faced Egyptian
person should sit in front of me, Posidon?

_Herm_. Certainly. You see, Earth-shaker, the Corinthians had
no gold at the time, so Lysippus made you of paltry bronze; Dog-
face is a whole gold-mine richer than you. You must put up with
being moved back, and not object to the owner of such a golden
snout being preferred.

_Aph_. Then, Hermes, find me a place in the front row; I am
golden.

_Herm_. Not so, Aphrodite, if I can trust my eyes; I am
purblind, or you are white marble; you were quarried, I take it,
from Pentelicus, turned by Praxiteles’s fancy into Aphrodite, and
handed over to the Cnidians.

_Aph_. Wait; my witness is unexceptionable—Homer. ‘The Golden
Aphrodite’ he calls me, up and down his poems.

_Herm_. Oh, yes, no doubt; _he_ called Apollo rich, ‘rolling in
gold’; but now where will you find Apollo? Somewhere in the
third-class seats; his crown has been taken off and his harp pegs
stolen by the pirates, you see. So _you_ may think yourself lucky
with a place above the fourth.

_Col_. Well, who will dare dispute _my_ claim? Am I not
the Sun? and look at my height. If the Rhodians had not decided on
such grandiose dimensions for me, the same outlay would have
furnished forth a round dozen of your golden Gods; I ought to be
valued proportionally. And then, besides the size, there is the
workmanship and careful finish.

_Herm_. What shall I do, Zeus? Here is a difficulty again—too
much for me. Going by material, he is bronze; but, reckoning the
talents his bronze cost, he would be above the first class.

_Zeus_. What business has he here dwarfing the rest and
blocking up all the bench?—Why, my excellent Rhodian, you may be
as superior to the golden ones as you will; but how can you
possibly go in the front row? Every one would have to get up, to
let you sit; half that broad beam of yours would fill the whole
House. I must ask you to assist our deliberations standing; you can
bend down your head to the meeting.

_Herm_. Now here is another problem. Both bronze, equal
aesthetically, being both from Lysippus’s studio, and, to crown
all, nothing to choose between them for birth—two sons of yours,
Zeus—Dionysus and Heracles. Which is to be first? You can see for
yourself, they mean to stand upon their order.

_Zeus_. We are wasting time, Hermes; the debate should have
been in full swing by now. Tell them to sit anyhow, according to
taste; we will have an _ad hoc_ meeting another day, and then
I shall know how to settle the question of precedence.

_Herm_. My goodness, what a noise! what low vulgar bawling!
listen—‘Hurry up with that carving!’ ‘Do pass the nectar!’ ‘Why no
more ambrosia?’ ‘When are those hecatombs coming?’ ‘Here, shares in
that victim!’

_Zeus_. Call them to order, Hermes; this nonsense must cease,
before I can give them the order of the day.

_Herm_. They do not all know Greek; and I haven’t the gift of
tongues, to make myself understood by Scythians and Persians and
Thracians and Celts. Perhaps I had better hold up my hand and
signal for silence.

_Zeus_. Do.

_Herm_. Good; they are as quiet as if they were so many
teachers of elocution. Now is the time for your speech; see, they
are all hanging on your lips.

_Zeus_. Why—there is something wrong with me—Hermes, my boy
—I will be frank with you. You know how confident and impressive I
always was as a public speaker?

_Herm_. I know; I used to be in such a fright; you threatened
sometimes to let down your golden cord and heave up earth and sea
from their foundations, Gods included.

_Zeus_. But to-day, my child—it may be this terrible crisis—
it may be the size of the audience—there is a vast number of Gods
here, isn’t there—anyhow, my thoughts are all mixed, I shiver, my
tongue seems tied. What is most absurd of all, my exordium is gone
clean out of my head; and I had prepared it on purpose to produce a
good impression at the start.

_Herm_. You have spoiled everything, Zeus. They cannot make
out your silence; they are expecting to hear of some terrible
disaster, to account for your delay.

_Zeus_. What do you think? Reel off the exordium in Homer?

_Herm_. Which one?

_Zeus_. Lend me your ears, Gods all and Goddesses.

_Herm_. Rubbish! you made quite exhibition enough of yourself
in that vein in our cabinet council. However, you might, if
you like, drop your metrical fustian, and adapt any one of
Demosthenes’s Philippics with a few alterations. That is the
fashionable method with speakers nowadays.

_Zeus_. Ah, that is a royal road to eloquence—simplifies
matters very much for a man in difficulties.

_Herm_. Go ahead, then.

_Zeus_. Men of—Heaven, I presume that you would be willing to
pay a great price, if you could know what in the world has
occasioned the present summons. Which being so, it is fitting that
you should give a ready hearing to my words. Now, whereas the
present crisis, Heavenians, may almost be said to lift up a voice
and bid us take vigorous hold on opportunity, it seems to me that
we are letting it slip from our nerveless grasp. And I wish now (I
can’t remember any more) to exhibit clearly to you the apprehensions
which have led to my summoning you.

As you are all aware, Mnesitheus the ship’s-captain yesterday made
his votive offering for the narrow escape of his vessel off
Caphereus, and those of us whom he had invited attended the banquet
in Piraeus. After the libations you went your several ways. I
myself, as it was not very late, walked up to town for an afternoon
stroll in Ceramicus, reflecting as I went on the parsimony of
Mnesitheus. When the ship was driving against the cliff, and
already inside the circle of reef, he had vowed whole hecatombs:
what he offered in fact, with sixteen Gods to entertain, was a
single cock—an old bird afflicted with catarrh—and half a dozen
grains of frankincense; these were all mildewed, so that they at
once fizzled out on the embers, hardly giving enough smoke to
tickle the olfactories. Engaged in these thoughts I reached the
Poecile, and there found a great crowd gathered; there were some
inside the Portico, a large number outside, and a few seated on the
benches vociferating as loud as they could. Guessing correctly that
these were philosophers of the militant variety, I had a mind to
stop and hear what they were saying. I was enveloped in a good
thick cloud, under cover of which I assumed their habit, lengthened
my beard, and so made a passable philosopher; then I elbowed my way
through the crowd and got in undetected. I found an accomplished
scoundrel and a pattern of human virtue at daggers drawn; they were
Damis the Epicurean and Timocles the Stoic. The latter was bathed
in perspiration, and his voice showed signs of wear, while Damis
goaded him on to further exertions with mocking laughter.

The bone of contention was ourselves. Damis—the reptile!—
maintained that we did not concern ourselves in thought or act with
human affairs, and practically denied our existence; that was what
it came to. And he found some support. Timocles was on our side,
and loyally, passionately, unshrinkingly did he champion the cause;
he extolled our Providence, and illustrated the orderly discerning
character of our influence and government. He too had his party;
but he was exhausted and quite husky; and the majority were
inclining to Damis. I saw how much was at stake, and ordered Night
to come on and break up the meeting. They accordingly dispersed,
agreeing to conclude the inquiry next day. I kept among the crowd
on its way home, heard its commendations of Damis, and found that
his views were far the more popular, though some still protested
against condemning Timocles out of hand, and preferred to see what
he would say for himself to-morrow.

You now know the occasion of this meeting—no light one, ye Gods,
if you reflect how entirely our dignity, our revenue, our honour,
depend on mankind. If they should accept as true either our
absolute non-existence or, short of that, our indifference to them,
farewell to our earthly sacrifices, attributes, honours; we shall
sit starving and ineffectual in Heaven; our beloved feasts and
assemblies, games and sacrifices, vigils and processions—all will
be no more. So mighty is the issue; believe me, it behoves us all
to search out salvation; and where lies salvation? In the victory
and acceptance of Timocles, in laughter that shall drown the voice
of Damis. For I doubt the unaided powers of Timocles, if our help
be not accorded him.

Hermes, make formal proclamation, and let the debate commence.

_Herm_. Hear, keep silence, clamour not. Of full and qualified
Gods, speak who will. Why, what means this? Doth none rise? Cower
ye confounded at these momentous tidings?

_Mo_.

  Away, ye dull as earth, as water weak!

But _I_ could find plenty to say, Zeus, if free speech were
granted me.

_Zeus_. Speak, Momus, and fear not. You will use your freedom,
surely, for the common good.

_Mo_. Hear, then, ye Gods; for out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh. You must know, I foresaw all this
clearly—our difficulty—the growth of these agitators; it is
ourselves who are responsible for their impudence; I swear to you,
we need not blame Epicurus nor his friends and successors, for the
prevalence of these ideas. Why, what can one expect men to think,
when they see all life topsy-turvy—the good neglected, pining in
poverty, disease, and slavery, detestable scoundrels honoured,
rolling in wealth, and ordering their betters about, temple-robbers
undetected and unpunished, the innocent constantly crucified and
bastinadoed? With this evidence before them, it is only natural
they should conclude against our existence. All the more when they
hear the oracles saying that some one

  The Halys crossed, o’erthrows a mighty realm,
  but not specifying whether that realm is his own or his enemy’s;

or again

  O sacred Salamis, thou shalt slay
  Full many a mother’s son.

The Greeks were mothers’ sons as well as the Persians, I suppose.
Or again, when they hear the ballads about our loves, our wounds,
captivities, thraldoms, quarrels, and endless vicissitudes (mark
you, we claim all the while to be blissful and serene), are they
not justified in ridiculing and belittling us? And then we say it
is outrageous if a few people who are not quite fools expose the
absurdity and reject Providence; why, we ought to be glad enough
that a few still go on sacrificing to blunderers like us.

And at this point, Zeus—this meeting is private; the human element
is not represented among us (except by Heracles, Dionysus,
Ganymede, and Asclepius, and they are naturalized)—at this point,
answer me a question frankly: did your interest in mankind ever
carry you so far as to sift the good from the bad? The answer is in
the negative, I know. Very well, then; had not a Theseus, on his
way from Troezen to Athens, exterminated the malefactors as an
incidental amusement, Sciron and Pityocamptes and Cercyon and the
rest of them might have gone on battening on the slaughter of
travellers, for all you and your Providence would have done. Had
not an old-fashioned thoughtful Eurystheus, benevolently collecting
information of local troubles, sent this energetic enterprising
servant of his about, the mighty Zeus would never have given a
thought to the Hydra or the Stymphalian birds, the Thracian horses
and the drunken insolence of Centaurs.

If the truth must out, we sit here with a single eye to one thing—
does a man sacrifice and feed the altars fat? Everything else
drifts as it may. We get our deserts, and shall continue to get
them, when men open their eyes by degrees and find that sacrifices
and processions bring them no profit. Before long you will find we
are the laughing-stock of people like Epicurus, Metrodorus, Damis,
who will have mastered and muzzled our advocates. With whom does it
lie to check and remedy this state of things? Why, with you, who
have brought it on. As for Momus, what is dishonour to him? He was
never among the recipients of honour, while you were still
prosperous; your banquetings were too exclusive.

_Zeus_. He was ever a cross-grained censor; we need not mind
his maundering, Gods. We have it from the admirable Demosthenes:
imputations, blame, criticism, these are easy things; they tax no
one’s capacity: what calls for a statesman is the suggesting of a
better course; and that is what I rely upon the rest of you for;
let us do our best without his help.

_Pos_. As for me, I live ordinarily under water, as you know,
and follow an independent policy in the depths; that policy is to
save sailors, set ships on their way, and keep the winds quiet, as
best I may. However, I do take an interest in your politics too,
and my opinion is that this Damis should be got rid of before the
debate; the thunderbolt would do it, or some means could be found;
else he might win—you say he is a plausible fellow, Zeus. It would
teach them that there is a reckoning for telling such tales about
us, too.

_Zeus_. You must be jesting, Posidon; you cannot have forgotten
that we have no say in the matter? It is the Fates that spin a
man’s thread, whether he be destined to the thunderbolt or the
sword, to fever or consumption. If it had depended on me, do you
suppose I should have let those temple-robbers get off unblasted
from Pisa the other day?—two of my curls shorn off, weighing half
a dozen pounds apiece. Would _you_ have stood it, when that
fisherman from Oreus stole your trident at Geraestus? Moreover,
they will think we are sensitive and angry; they will suspect that
the reason why we get the man out of the way without waiting to see
him matched with Timocles is that we are afraid of his arguments;
they will say we are just securing judgement by default.

_Pos_. Dear, dear! I thought I had hit upon a good short cut
to our object.

_Zeus_. Nonsense, there is something fishy about it, Posidon;
and it is a dull notion too, to destroy your adversary beforehand;
he dies unvanquished, and leaves his argument behind him still
debatable and undecided.

_Pos_. Then the rest of you must think of something better, if
‘fishy’ is the best word you have for me.

_Apol_. If we beardless juniors were competent to address the
meeting, _I_ might perhaps have contributed usefully to the
discussion.

_Mo_. Oh, Apollo, the inquiry is so important that seniority
may be waived, and any one allowed his say; a pretty thing to split
hairs about legal competence at a supreme crisis! But _you_
are surely qualified by this time; your minority is prehistoric,
your name is on the Privy-Council roll, your senatorial rank dates
back almost to Cronus. Pray spare us these juvenile airs, and give
us your views freely; you need not be bashful about your smooth
chin; you have a father’s rights in Asclepius’s great bush of a
beard. Moreover, you never had a better opportunity of showing your
wisdom, if your philosophic _seances_ with the Muses on Helicon
have not been thrown away.

_Apol_. Why, it does not lie with you to give me leave, Momus;
Zeus must do that; and if he bids, I may find words that shall be
not all uncultured, but worthy of my Heliconian studies.

_Zeus_. Speak, son; thou hast my leave.

_Apol_. This Timocles is a good pious man, and an excellent
Stoic scholar; his learning has gained him a wide and paying
connexion among young men; in private lessons his manner is indeed
very convincing. But in public speaking he is timid, cannot produce
his voice, and has a provincial accent; the consequence is, he gets
laughed at in company, lacks fluency, stammers and loses his
thread—especially when he emphasizes these defects by an attempt
at flowers of speech. As far as intelligence goes, he is extremely
acute and subtle, so the Stoic experts say; but he spoils it all by
the feebleness of his oral explanations; he is confused and
unintelligible, deals in paradoxes, and when he is interrogated,
explains _ignotum per ignotius_; his audience does not grasp
his meaning, and therefore laughs at him. I think lucidity a most
important point; there is nothing one should be so careful about as
to be comprehensible.

_Mo_. You praise lucidity, Apollo; your theory is excellent,
though your practice does not quite conform; your oracles are
crooked and enigmatic, and generally rely upon a safe ambiguity; a
second prophet is required to say what they mean. But what is your
solution of the problem? How are we to cure Timocles of the
impediment in his speech?

_Apol_. If possible, we should provide him with an able
counsel (there are plenty such) to be inspired by him and give
adequate expression to his ideas.

_Mo_. Your sapience is beardless indeed—_in statu pupillari_, one
may say. A learned gathering: Timocles with counsel by his side to
interpret his ideas. Damis speaking _in propria persona_ with his
own tongue, his opponent employing a go-between into whose ears he
privately pours inspiration, and the go-between producing ornate
periods, without, I dare say, understanding what he is told—most
entertaining for the listeners! We shall get nothing out of that
device.

But, reverend sir, you claim the gift of prophecy, and it has
brought you in good pay—golden ingots on one occasion?—why not
seize this opportunity of exhibiting your art? You might tell us
which of the disputants will win; a prophet knows the future, of
course.

_Apol_. I have no tripod or incense here; no substitute for
the divining-well of Castaly.

_Mo_. Aha! you are caught! you will not come to the scratch.

_Zeus_. Speak, my son, in spite of all; give not this enemy
occasion to blaspheme; let him not flout thy powers with tripod and
water and frankincense, as though thine art were lost without them.

_Apol_. Father, it were better done at Delphi or at Colophon,
with all the customary instruments to hand. Yet, bare and
unprovided as I am, I will essay to tell whether of them twain
shall prevail.—If the metre is a little rough, you must make
allowances.

_Mo_. Go on, then; but remember, Apollo: lucidity; no ‘able
counsel,’ no solutions that want solving themselves. It is not a
question of lamb and tortoise boiling [Footnote: See _Croesus_
in Notes.] in Lydia now; you know what we want to get at.

_Zeus_. What will thine utterance be? How dread, even now, is
the making ready! The altered hue, the rolling eyes, the floating
locks, the frenzied gesture—all is possession, horror, mystery.

_Apol_.

  Who lists may hear Apollo’s soothfast rede
  Of stiff debate, heroic challenge ringing
  Shrill, and each headpiece lined with fence of proof.
  Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife;
  Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak.
  But when grasshopper feels the vulture’s talons,
  Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last,
  Prevail the mules, butts his swift foals the ass.

_Zeus_. Why that ribald laughter, Momus? It is no laughing
matter. Stop, stop, fool; you’ll choke yourself.

_Mo_. Well, such a clear simple oracle puts one in spirits.

_Zeus_. Indeed? Then perhaps you will kindly expound it.

_Mo_. No need of a Themistocles this time; it is absolutely
plain. The oracle just says in so many words that he is a quack,
and we pack-asses (quite true) and mules to believe in him; we have
not as much sense, it adds, as a grasshopper.

_Herac_. Father, I am only an alien, but I am not afraid to
give my opinion. Let them begin their debate. Then, if Timocles
gets the best of it, we can let the meeting go on, in our own
interest; on the other hand, if things look bad, I will give the
Portico a shake, if you like, and bring it down on Damis; a
confounded fellow like that is not to insult us.

_Zeus_. Now by Heracles—I can swear by you, I certainly
cannot swear by your plan—what a crude—what a shockingly
philistine suggestion! What! destroy all those people for one man’s
wickedness? and the Portico thrown in, with the Miltiades and
Cynaegirus on the field of Marathon? Why, if these were ruined, how
could the orators ever make another speech, with the best of their
stock-in-trade taken from them? Besides, while you were alive, you
might possibly have done a thing like that; but now that you are a
God, you surely understand that only the Fates are competent, and
we cannot interfere?

_Herac_. Then when I slew the lion or the Hydra, was I only
the Fates’ instrument?

_Zeus_. Of course you were.

_Herac_. And now, suppose any one insults me, or robs my
temple, or upsets an image of me, am I not to pulverize him, just
because the Fates have not decreed it long ago?

_Zeus_. Certainly not.

_Herac_. Then allow me to speak my mind;

  I’m a blunt man; I call a spade a spade.

If this is the state of things with you, good-bye for me to your
honours and altar-steam and fat of victims; I shall be off to
Hades. There, if I show my bow ready for action, the ghosts of the
monsters I have slain will be frightened, at least.

_Zeus_. Oh, splendid! ‘Thine own lips testify against thee,’
says the book; you would have saved Damis some trouble by putting
this in his mouth.

But who is this breathless messenger? Bronze—a nice clean figure
and outline—_chevelure_ rather out of date. Ah, he must be
your brother, Hermes, who stands in the Market by the Poecile; I
see he is all over pitch; that is what comes of having casts taken
of you every day. My son, why this haste? Have you important news
from Earth?

_Hermag_. Momentous news, calling for infinite energy.

_Zeus_. Speak, tarry not, if any peril else hath escaped our
vigilance.

_Hermag_.

  It chanced of late that by the statuaries
  My breast and back were plastered o’er with pitch;
  A mock cuirass tight-clinging hung, to ape
  My bronze, and take the seal of its impression.
  When lo, a crowd! therein a pallid pair
  Sparring amain, vociferating logic;
  ’Twas Damis and—

_Zeus_. Truce to your iambics, my excellent Hermagoras; I know
the pair. But tell me whether the fight has been going on long.

_Hermag_. Not yet; they were still skirmishing—slinging
invective at long range.

_Zeus_. Then we have only, Gods, to look over and listen. Let
the Hours unbar, draw back the clouds, and open the doors of
Heaven.

Upon my word, what a vast gathering! And I do not quite like the
looks of Timocles; he is trembling; he has lost his head; he will
spoil everything; it is perfectly plain, he will not be able to
stand up to Damis. Well, there is one thing left us: we can pray
for him

  Inwardly, silently, lest Damis hear.

_Ti. What, you miscreant, no Gods? no Providence?

Da. No, no; you answer my question first; what makes you believe in
them?

Ti. None of that, now; the_ onus probandi _is with you,
scoundrel.

Da. None of that, now; it is with you.

Zeus_. At this game ours is much the better man—louder-voiced,
rougher-tempered. Good, Timocles; stick to invective; that is your
strong point; once you get off that, he will hook and hold you up
like a fish.

_Ti. I solemnly swear I will not answer first.

Da. Well, put your questions, then; so much you score by your oath.
But no abuse, please.

Ti. Done. Tell me, then, and be damned to you, do you deny that the
Gods exercise providence?

Da. I do.

Ti. What, are all the events we see uncontrolled, then?

Da. Yes.

Ti. And the regulation of the universe is not under any God’s care?

Da. No.

Ti. And everything moves casually, by blind tendency?

Da. Yes.

Ti. Gentlemen, can you tolerate such sentiments? Stone the
blasphemer.

Da. What do you mean by hounding them against me? Who are you, that
you should protest in the Gods’ name? They do not even protest in
their own; they have sent no judgement on me, and they have had
time enough to hear me, if they have ears.

Ti. They do hear you; they do; and some day their vengeance will
find you out.

Da. Pray when are they likely to have time to spare for me? They
are far too busy, according to you, with all the infinite concerns
of the universe on their hands. That is why they have never
punished you for your perjuries and—well, for the rest of your
performances, let me say, not to break our compact about abuse. And
yet I am at a loss to conceive any more convincing proof they could
have given of their Providence, than if they had trounced you as
you deserve. But no doubt they are from home—t’other side of
Oceanus, possibly, on a visit to ‘the blameless Ethiopians.’ We
know they have a way of going there to dinner, self-invited
sometimes.

Ti. What answer is possible to such ribaldry?

Da. The answer I have been waiting for all this time; you can tell
me what made you believe in divine Providence.

Ti. Firstly, the order of nature—the sun running his regular
course, the moon the same, the circling seasons, the growth of
plants, the generation of living things, the ingenious adaptations
in these latter for nutrition, thought, movement, locomotion; look
at a carpenter or a shoemaker, for instance; and the thing is
infinite. All these effects, and no effecting Providence?

Da. You beg the question; whether the effects are produced by
Providence is just what is not yet proved. Your description of
nature I accept; it does not follow that there is definite design
in it; it is not impossible that things now similar and homogeneous
have developed from widely different origins. But you give the name
‘order’ to mere blind tendency. And you will be very angry if one
follows your appreciative catalogue of nature in all its variety,
but stops short of accepting it as a proof of detailed Providence.
So, as the play says,

  Here lurks a fallacy; bring me sounder proof.

Ti. I cannot admit that further proof is required; nevertheless, I
will give you one. Will you allow Homer to have been an admirable
poet?

Da. Surely.

Ti. Well_, he _maintains Providence, and warrants my belief.

Da. Magnificent! why, every one will grant you Homer’s poetic
excellence; but not that he, or any other poet for that matter, is
good authority on questions of this sort._ Their _object, of
course, is not truth, but fascination; they call in the charms of
metre, they take tales for the vehicle of what instruction they
give, and in short all their efforts are directed to pleasure.

But I should be glad to hear which parts of Homer you pin your
faith to. Where he tells how the daughter, the brother, and the
wife of Zeus conspired to imprison him? If Thetis had not been
moved to compassion and called Briareus, you remember, our
excellent Zeus would have been seized and manacled; and his
gratitude to her induced him to delude Agamemnon with a lying
dream, and bring about the deaths of a number of Greeks. Do you
see? The reason was that, if he had struck and blasted Agamemnon’s
self with a thunderbolt, his double dealing would have come to
light. Or perhaps you found the Diomede story most convincing?—
Diomede wounded Aphrodite, and afterwards Ares himself, at Athene’s
instigation; and then the Gods actually fell to blows and went
a-tilting—without distinction of sex; Athene overthrew Ares,
exhausted no doubt with his previous wound from Diomede; and

  Hermes the stark and stanch ’gainst Leto stood.

Or did you put your trust in Artemis? She was a sensitive lady, who
resented not being invited to Oeneus’s banquet, and by way of
vengeance sent a monstrous irresistible boar to ravage his country.
Is it with tales like these that Homer has prevailed on you?

Zeus_. Goodness me, what a shout, Gods! they are all cheering
Damis. And our man seems posed; he is frightened and trembles; he
is going to throw up the sponge, I am certain of it; he looks round
for a gap to get away through.

_Ti. And will you scout Euripides too, then? Again and again he
brings Gods on the stage, and shows them upholding virtue in the
Heroes, but chastising wickedness and impiety (like yours).

Da. My noble philosopher, if that is how the tragedians have
convinced you, you have only two alternatives: you must suppose
that divinity is temporarily lodged either in the actor—a Polus,
an Aristodemus, a Satyrus—, or else in the actual masks, buskins,
long tunics, cloaks, gloves, stomachers, padding, and ornamental
paraphernalia in general of tragedy—a manifest absurdity; for when
Euripides can speak his own sentiments unfettered by dramatic
necessity, observe the freedom of his remarks:

  Dost see this aether stretching infinite,
  And girdling earth with close yet soft embrace?
  That reckon thou thy Zeus, that name thy God.

And again,

  Zeus, whatever Zeus may be (for, save by hearsay,
    I know not)—;

and there is more of the same sort.

Ti. Well, but all men—ay, all nations—have acknowledged and,
feted Gods; was it all delusion?

Da. Thank you; a timely reminder; national observances show better
than anything else how vague religious theory is. Confusion is
endless, and beliefs as many as believers. Scythia makes offerings
to a scimetar, Thrace to the Samian runaway Zamolxis, Phrygia to a
Month-God, Ethiopia to a Day-Goddess, Cyllene to Phales, Assyria to
a dove, Persia to fire, Egypt to water. In Egypt, though, besides
the universal worship of water, Memphis has a private cult of the
ox, Pelusium of the onion, other cities of the ibis or the
crocodile, others again of baboon, cat, or monkey. Nay, the very
villages have their specialities: one deifies the right shoulder,
and another across the river the left; one a half skull, another an
earthenware bowl or platter. Come, my fine fellow, is it not all
ridiculous?

Mo_. What did I tell you, Gods? All this was sure to come out
and be carefully overhauled.

_Zeus_. You did, Momus, and your strictures were justified; if
once we come safe out of this present peril, I will try to
introduce reforms.

_Ti. Infidel! where do you find the source of oracles and
prophecies, if not in the Gods and their Providence?

Da. About oracles, friend, the less said the better; I shall ask
you to choose your instances, you see. Will Apollo’s answer to the
Lydian suit you? That was as symmetrical as a double-edged knife;
or say, it faced both ways, like those Hermae which are made
double, alike whether you look at front or back. Consider; will
Croesus’s passage of the Halys destroy his own realm, or Cyrus’s?
Tet the wretched Sardian paid a long price for his ambidextrous
hexameter.

Mo_. The man is realizing just my worst apprehensions. Where is
our handsome musician now? Ah, there you are; go down and plead
your own cause against him.

_Zeus_. Hush, Momus; you are murdering our feelings; it is no
time for recrimination.

_Ti. Have a care, Damis; this is sacrilege, no less; what you say
amounts to razing the temples and upsetting the altars.

Da. Oh, not_ all _the altars; what harm do they do, so long as
incense and perfume is the worst of it? As for Artemis’s altar at
Tauri, though, and her hideous feasts, I should like it overturned
from base to cornice.

Zeus_. Whence comes this resistless plague among us? There is
none of us he spares; he is as free with his tongue as a tub
orator,

  And grips by turns the innocent and guilty.

_Mo_. The innocent? You will not find many of those among us,
Zeus. He will soon come to laying hands upon some of the great and
eminent, I dare say.

_Ti. Do you close your ears even to Zeus’s thunder, atheist?

Da. I clearly cannot shut out the thunder; whether it is Zeus’s
thunder, you know better than I perhaps; you may have interviewed
the Gods. Travellers from Crete tell another story: there is a tomb
there with an inscribed pillar, stating that Zeus is long dead, and
not going to thunder any more.

Mo_. I could have told you that was coming long ago. What, Zeus?
pale? and your teeth chattering? What is the matter? You should
cheer up, and treat such manikins with lofty contempt.

_Zeus_. Contempt? See what a number of them there is—how set
against us they are already—and he has them fast by the ears.

_Mo_. Well, but you have only to choose, and you can let down
your golden cord, and then every man of them

  With earth and sky and all thou canst draw up.

_Ti. Blasphemer, have you ever been a voyage?

Da. Many.

Ti. Well, then, the wind struck the canvas and filled the sails,
and it or the oars gave you way, but there was a person responsible
for steering and for the safety of the ship?

Da. Certainly.

Ti. Now that ship would not have sailed, without a steersman; and
do you suppose that this great universe drifts unsteered and
uncontrolled?

Zeus_. Good, this time, Timocles; a cogent illustration, that.

_Da. But, you pattern of piety, the earthly navigator makes his
plans, takes his measures, gives his orders, with a single eye to
efficiency; there is nothing useless or purposeless on board;
everything is to make navigation easy or possible; but as for the
navigator for whom you claim the management of this vast ship, he
and his crew show no reason or appropriateness in any of their
arrangements; the forestays, as likely as not, are made fast to the
stern, and both sheets to the bows; the anchor will be gold, the
beak lead, decoration below the water-line, and unsightliness
above.

As for the men, you will find some lazy awkward coward in second or
third command, or a fine swimmer, active as a cat aloft, and a
handy man generally, chosen out of all the rest to—pump. It is
just the same with the passengers: here is a gaolbird accommodated
with a seat next the captain and treated with reverence, there a
debauchee or parricide or temple-robber in honourable possession of
the best place, while crowds of respectable people are packed
together in a corner and hustled by their real inferiors. Consider
what sort of a voyage Socrates and Aristides and Phocion had of it,
on short rations, not venturing, for the filth, to stretch out
their legs on the bare deck; and on the other hand what a
comfortable, luxurious, contemptuous life it was for Callias or
Midias or Sardanapalus.

That is how things go on board your ship, sir wiseacre; and who
shall count the wrecks? If there had been a captain supervising and
directing, in the first place he would have known the difference
between good and bad passengers, and in the second he would have
given them their deserts; the better would have had the better
accommodation above by his side, and the worse gone below; with
some of the better he would have shared his meals and his counsels.
So too for the crew: the keen sailor would have been made look-out
man or captain of the watch, or given some sort of precedence, and
the lazy shirker have tasted the rope’s end half a dozen times a
day. The metaphorical ship, your worship, is likely to be capsized
by its captain’s incompetence.

Mo_. He is sweeping on to victory, with wind and tide.

_Zeus_. Too probable, Momus. And Timocles never gets hold of
an effective idea; he can only ladle out trite commonplaces
higgledy-piggledy—no sooner heard than refuted.

_Ti. Well, well; my ship leaves you unconvinced; I must drop my
sheet-anchor, then; that at least is unbreakable.

Zeus_. I wonder what it is.

_Ti. See whether this is a sound syllogism; can you upset it?—If
there are altars, there are Gods: there_ are _altars; therefore,
there are Gods. Now then.

Da. Ha, ha, ha! I will answer as soon as I can get done with
laughing.

Ti. Will you never stop? At least tell me what the joke is.

Da. Why, you don’t see that your anchor (sheet-anchor, too) hangs
by a mere thread. You defend on connexion between the existence of
Gods and the existence of altars, and fancy yourself safe at
anchor! As you admit that this was your sheet-anchor, there is
nothing further to detain us.

Ti. You retire; you confess yourself beaten, then?

Da. Yes; we have seen you take sanctuary at the altars under
persecution. At those altars I am ready (the sheet-anchor be my
witness) to swear peace and cease from strife.

Ti. Tou are playing with me, are you, you vile body-snatcher, you
loathsome well-whipped scum! As if we didn’t know who your father
was, how your mother was a harlot! You strangled your own brother,
you live in fornication, you debauch the young, you unabashed
lecher! Don’t be in such a hurry; here is something for you to take
with you; this broken pot will serve me to cut your foul throat.

Zeus_. Damis makes off with a laugh, and the other after him,
calling him names, mad at his insolence. He will get him on the
head with that pottery, I know. And now, what are we to do?

_Herm_. Why, the man in the comedy was not far out:

  Put a good face on ‘t, and thou hast no harm.

It is no such terrible disaster, if a few people go away infected.
There are plenty who take the other view—a majority of Greeks, the
body and dregs of the people, and the barbarians to a man.

_Zeus_. Ah, Hermes, but there is a great deal in Darius’s
remark about Zopyrus—I would rather have had one ally like Damis
than be the lord of a thousand Babylons.




THE COCK

_Micyllus_. _A Cock_


_Mi_. Detested bird! May Zeus crunch your every bone! Shrill,
envious brute: to wake me from delightful dreams of wealth and
magic blessedness with those piercing, deafening notes! Am I not
even in sleep to find a refuge from Poverty, Poverty more vile than
your vile self? Why, it cannot be midnight yet: all is hushed;
numbness—sure messenger of approaching dawn—has not yet performed
its morning office upon my limbs: and this wakeful brute (one would
think he was guarding the golden fleece) starts crowing before
night has fairly begun. But he shall pay for it.—Yes; only wait
till daylight comes, and my stick shall avenge me; I am not going
to flounder about after you in the dark.

_Cock_. Why, master, I meant to give you a pleasant surprise:
I borrowed what I could from the night, that you might be up early
and break the back of your work; think, if you get a shoe done
before sunrise, you are so much the nearer to earning your day’s
bread. However, if you prefer to sleep, I have done; I will be mute
as any fish. Only you may find your rich dreams followed by a
hungry awakening.

_Mi_. God of portents! Heracles preserve us from the evil to
come! My cock has spoken with a human voice.

_Cock_. And what if he has? Is that so very portentous?

_Mi_. I should think it was. All Gods avert the omen!

_Cock_. Micyllus, I am afraid your education has been sadly
neglected. If you had read your Homer, you would know that
Achilles’s horse Xanthus declined to have anything more to do with
neighing, and stood on the field of battle spouting whole
hexameters; _he_ was not content with plain prose like me; he
even took to prophecy, and foretold to Achilles what should befall
him. Nor was this considered anything out of the way; Achilles saw
nothing portentous about it, nor did he invoke Heracles on the
occasion. What a fuss you would have made, if the keel of the Argo
had addressed a remark to you, or the leaves of the Dodonaean oak
had opened their mouths and prophesied; or if you had seen ox-
hides crawling about, and heard the half-cooked flesh of the beasts
bellowing on the spit! As for me, considering my connexion with
Hermes—most loquacious, most argumentative of Gods—and my
familiar intercourse with mankind, it was only to be expected that
I should pick up your language pretty quickly. Nay, there is a
still better reason for my conversational powers, which I don’t
mind telling you, if you will promise to keep quiet about it.

_Mi_. Am I dreaming still, or is this bird really talking to
me?—In Hermes’ name then, good creature, out with your better
reason; I will be mum, never fear; it shall go no further. Why, who
would believe the story, when I told him that I had it from a cock?

_Cock_. Listen. You will doubtless be surprised to learn that
not so long ago the cock who stands before you was a man.

_Mi_. Why, to be sure, I have heard something like this before
about a cock. It was the story of a young man called Alectryon
[Footnote: Alectryon is the Greek word for a cock.]; he was a
friend of Ares,—used to join in his revels and junketings, and
give him a hand in his love affairs. Whenever Ares went to pay a
sly visit to Aphrodite, he used to take Alectryon with him, and as
he was particularly afraid that the Sun would see him, and tell
Hephaestus, he would always leave Alectryon at the door, so that he
might give him warning when the Sun was up. But one day Alectryon
fell asleep, and unwittingly betrayed his trust; the consequence
was that the Sun got a peep at the lovers, while Ares was having a
comfortable nap, relying on Alectryon to tell him if any one came.
Hephaestus heard of it, and caught them in that cage of his, which
he had long had waiting for them. When Ares was released, he was so
angry with Alectryon that he turned him into a cock, armour and
all, as is shown by his crest; and that is what makes you cocks in
such a hurry to crow at dawn, to let us know that the Sun is coming
up presently; it is your way of apologizing to Ares, though crowing
will not mend matters now.

_Cock_. Yes, there is that story too: but that is nothing to
do with mine; I only became a cock quite lately.

_Mi_. But what I want to know is, how did it happen?

_Cock_. Did you ever hear of Pythagoras of Samos, son of
Mnesarchus?

_Mi_. What, that sophist quack, who forbade the eating of
meat, and would have banished beans from our tables (no beans,
indeed! my favourite food!), and who wanted people to go for five
years without speaking?

_Cock_. And who, I may add, was Euphorbus before he was
Pythagoras.

_Mi_. He was a knave and a humbug, that Pythagoras, by all
accounts.

_Cock_. That Pythagoras, my worthy friend, is now before you
in person: spare his feelings, especially as you know nothing about
his real character.

_Mi_. Portent upon portent! a cock philosopher! But proceed,
son of Mnesarchus: how came you to change from man to bird, from
Samos to Tanagra? [Footnote: See Notes.] ’Tis an unconvincing
story; I find a difficulty in swallowing it. I have noticed two
things about you already, which do not look much like Pythagoras.

_Cock_. Yes?

_Mi_. For one thing, you are garrulous; I might say noisy.
Now, if I am not mistaken, Pythagoras advocated a course of five
years’ silence at a stretch. As for the other, it is rank heresy.
You will remember that yesterday, not having anything else to give
you, I brought you some beans: and you,—you gobbled them up
without thinking twice about it! Either you lied when you told me
you were Pythagoras, or else you have sinned against your own laws:
in eating those beans, you have as good as bolted your own father’s
head.

_Cock_. Ah, you don’t u

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