I don't under stand his
language
; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor any known tongue.
Universal Anthology - v07
Yet Buffon himself, famed as a writer a century ago, and remembered to-day chiefly for his mastery of literary style, was by profession a naturalist.
His greater contem porary, Voltaire, the master litterateur of France, did not hesitate to pose as a master in science as welL Again, Dante, the one world- classic of the Italian language, was learned in every phase of the known science of his time.
Keats, one of [the few writers of English whom critics have ventured to name in the same breath with Shakespeare, was trained to the profession of medicine.
Goldsmith, famed for the lucidity of his verse and prose alike, was a practising physician.
So was Schiller, the second poet of Germany ; while his one master in that tongue, the incomparable Goethe, whose genius " raised the German language to a new plane as a medium of literary expression," would be remembered as a discoverer in science had he never penned a page that could be called literature.
Turning to America we find that Franklin, the one man who attained distinction as a writer in Colonial days, was equally distinguished as a scientist ; and everyone will recall that in a later day the most genial of poets, Holmes, made literature only a staff, to quote his own happy phrase, his " crutch " being medicine, and his specialty anatomy, the veritable dry bones of medicine at that.
Without looking further, these familiar illustrations suffice to xiii
xiv THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
indicate that there is no necessary incompatibility between the so- called scientific cast of mind and the capacity for artistic expression in words. Yet the argument must not be carried too far. The great mass of the literature of science, using the term in the broader sense, is matter which cannot by any elasticity of definition be brought within the narrower ken of literature at alL In the main, men of science write as one would expect them to write. The style is the man, and the man of science is as a rule a dry-as-dust fact-hunter. Here and there, men of literary capacity have been devotees of science; but this cannot hide the fact that most scientists have hardly a spark of artistic sensibility, and that the great mass of scientific writing is painfully devoid of literary merit. More than that, most of the great classics of scientific literature owe their position, in the nature of the case, to their matter rather than their manner, and hence are not, properly speaking, works of art. They constitute what De Quincey appropriately termed the " literature of knowledge. "
There is a long list of this character which, without regard to their varying degrees of artistic merit, must be counted among the world's great books, because of the enormous influence they have had on the progress of thought, and of civilisation itself. Thus the varied scientific writings of Aristotle furnished what seemed the last word on almost every department of knowledge, undis puted and indisputable, for something like a hundred generations of his followers. The Almagest and the Geographia of Ptolemy, and the Natural History of the elder Pliny, in so far as they did not conflict with Aristotle, were accepted as final authorities in their respective fields for a thousand years. The Bevolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, of Copernicus, was instrumental in working a veritable revolution in the accepted conception of the scheme of the universe, and of the earth's relative importance in that scheme. Newton's Principia explained the mechanics of the heavenly bodies to the wonderment of mankind.
The Mechanique Celeste and the Systeme du Mbnd of Laplace, expounding the nebular hypothesis, first cleared up the mystery of the creation of the world itself.
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xv
The origin of the strata of the earth's crust was never even vaguely understood till James Hutton wrote his Revolutions of the Globe; the theories he put forward, involving the complete over throw of the accepted notions as to the age of our planet, extended and developed by Lyell, found full expression in the latter writer's Principles of Geology.
A vision of the successive' populations of beings that have peopled our globe, and have left no trace of their existence except in the form of random fossils, was first given in the Ossementa Fossiles of Cuvier. The origin of these successive populations of creatures, tentatively explained by Lamarck in 1809, was satis factorily accounted for just half a century later in the Origin of Species of Darwin.
This is but listing off-hand the names of a few of the more important classics of the literature of fact, in what may be con sidered a single line of thought. Each of these works was epochal, and is assured permanency of fame because of its influence on the advance of knowledge. Yet the very nature of the questions treated, necessarily removes some of them from the ken of the vast majority even of educated people. The Principia and the Mechanique Cdeste, for example, are in effect treatises on mathematics, and as such are necessarily repugnant, and indeed unintelligible, to all but a small coterie of readers. On the other hand, such topics as the origin of the earth's crust and the development of organic forms lend themselves much more readily to artistic treatment, and the history of some of the classics that treat of these topics points a very clear moral concerning the value of literary skill as an aid even to the most technical of scientists. Thus the book of Hutton, despite the startling, not to say sensational, character of its subject, found very few readers, chiefly because of its heavy, intricate style. Its data remained little known till Playfair practically re-wrote the book some years after its author's death. When Lyell took the subject in hand, the world had moved on a generation, to be sure, yet it was not so much this progress as the masterly exposition and lucid style of the Principles which forced the new geology upon the popular
xvi THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
attention. Lyell avowedly recognised both the difficulties and the desirability of attaining a popular style, and thanks to the success of his efforts at clear writing, the revolutionary doctrines of which he was the herald received in his own generation an acceptance which might otherwise have been long withheld from them.
The Origin of Species also owed much to the form of its presentation. Purporting to be only an abstract of the voluminous records which the author had spent twenty years in collecting, it necessarily bristled with technical facts, and hence could not be expected to make " easy reading. " Professor Huxley used to say that he never took it up afresh without finding something new that he had overlooked in previous readings ; and if Darwin's greatest disciple could make such a statement, it is hardly to be hoped that anyone else has ever fully mastered all the mere facts of the Origin. Yet these facts are arranged and presented in such fashion as to carry the reader forward, if not easily, at least clearly and unequivocally, to the conclusions at which the author aimed.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that a greater artist might have marshalled the data of the Origin of Species in a still more convincing array, for it chances that a greater artist did so marshal its essentials with telling effect very soon after the book appeared. Much as Galileo, in his Dialogues, had given artistic expression to the revolutionary doctrines of Copernicus, Huxley, in his Man's Place in Nature, and in a score of other essays, brought all the resources of a marvellously flexible literary style to the aid of the equally revolutionary doctrines that Darwin had inaugurated. Nor was Huxley alone in this work. There came to his aid, from another field of science, a man of perhaps even greater literary skill ; a man who has probably had no peer as a master of English among the scientific writers of our generation. I mean, of course, Professor Tyndall. His writings and those of Huxley, not merely on this topic, but all along the lines of their varied scientific interests, are perhaps the best illustrations that have been given in our time of the extent to which literary art may triumph over difficulties of subject. Many of their essays stand as models of luminous exposition, lifting the reader over
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xvii
every difficulty, and visualising the subject before ^him in enticing forms. Not all that they wrote is of equal value. Much of their most incisive work was of a controversial character, the interest of which cannot be other than ephemeral. Most of those well-aimed blows that were levelled in the cause of Darwinism spent their full force on the generation that called them forth. The cause triumphant, the means that led to victory, will be in the main forgotten. But fortunately there remains a fair residuum of writings of these masters that can claim a more lasting regard ; in particular, such masterpieces as Tyndall's "beautiful book"—as Lord Kelvin calls it—Heat as a Mode of Motion, and the various popular lectures of Huxley
It would be futile, however, to hope that even these can claim perennial popularity, or can have anything more than historical interest after the lapse of two or three generations. They are classics of scientific literature in their day, and classics they will remain, but their interest must wane as their facts lose novelty. The history of similar works in the past leaves no doubt as to this. Who to-day reads, for example, the discourses of the poet- scientist, Davy, which so captivated the English-speaking world at the beginning of the century ; or the equally lucid expositions of Arago, which set the French capital in a flutter a generation ago. Once so popular, these works have already become fossils on library shelves.
So it must be with all writings, however artistic their drapery, that depend fundamentally upon a skeleton of scientific facts for their interest. The creative literature of poem, of drama, of story, revolving ever about a few central human passions which time has little modified, may appeal to generation after generation, but the literature of fact is doomed to obsolescence by its own success.
There are certain other departments of the literature of science, however, which may claim a certain degree of immunity from this preordained fate. Histories^ of science, e. g. , stand on no different plane, intrinsically, from other histories. Thus Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, Cuvier's History of the Advance of Science
in his Generation, Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion VOL. VII. — 2
xviii THE LITERATUKE OF SCIENCE
and Science, White's recent work of similar title, and the numerous historical essays by other writers, including Arago, Huxley, and Tyndall among the number, must be judged on their literary merits according to the same standards by which one judges Gibbon or Mommsen. Again, there is a quite different field of scientific literature, of a lighter kind, yet perhaps most permanent of all, because of its introduction of the personal element, added to the universality of the interests to which it appeals. I refer now to the descriptive writers on natural history and allied topics, who have studied nature at first hand, and whose accounts of their dis coveries have the interest of personal narratives quite aside from the exact character of the facts which they record. There is a long list of such writings, of varying degrees of scientific accuracy, as of literary merit. Perhaps the most famous of them is the Compleate Angler of Isaac Walton, a work inconsequential enough in a scientific way, to be sure, yet falling clearly within our present category, and having a security of literary position that can be claimed by few other works to be found there. Next in point of time come the charming letters of Gilbert White, gossipping about the birds and beasts and reptiles and insects of his parish, and gathered into a soon-to-be-famous volume, under title of the Natural History of Selborne. Then in our own century there are the books of the hermit of Walden, Thoreau, the friend of Emerson, lover of Nature in her every phase, and diviner of many of her secrets ; and the essays of John Muir, the poet of the Sierra Nevadas, whom Emerson pronounced more wonderful even than Thoreau; and a small library of strictly contemporary writings in the same vein, with the works of John Borroughs at their head.
The authors of these works are delightful essayists, prose-poets if you will, whose inspiration is drawn directly from nature, and who breathe into their pages something of the freshness and novelty of Nature herself. They take the reader with them to the woods, and make him feel that their discoveries are his discoveries. What they have seen has the charm of personal experience ; the interest of the specific over the generic fact. One may know well
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xix
enough that the cuckoo and the cow-bird lay their eggs in the nest of other birds ; but when, with the eyes of White or Burroughs, one spys upon the individual cuckoo or cow-bird, and watches its stealthy imposture upon yellow-hammer or warbler, one has the feeling of the discoverer, and the old story is ever new. There is something of this same element of personal interest, too, in the writings of several of the naturalists of more serious purpose. The Natural History of Buffon, and the Ornithologies of Wilson and Audubon, for example, will for this reason retain a certain interest long after the mere facts they recorded, considered as scientific data, are worn thread-bare with repetition.
Such writings as these, then, have a certain permanent value as literature. Owing their value to form rather than to matter, they are true works of art. But, on the other hand, no one would claim for them more than a minor place in art. However perfect of their kind, they are not of the most important kind. They are works for the leisure hour, far removed from the heights or the depths of the profound emotions. The really important share of science in building up the great literature of the world has not been attained through such means as this, nor indeed through any direct means. Its true power has been shown rather through the indirect channels of its influence upon literature that in itself is not scientific.
Ever since literature had a beginning there have been masters of the craft who have grasped eagerly after all the scientific knowledge of their time, and have made such use of the fragments then available as great artists alone could make. Take Shakespeare himself in illustration. Every one knows how his lines bristle with scientific allusions ; for has not the fact been brought against him in the absurd Baconian controversy ? Not to multiply illustrations, one might almost say that the greater the writer, the more surely do we find him in touch with the science of his time. This, to be sure, is no proof that scientific knowledge is pre-requisite to the practice of the literary art — since the greatest artists imbibe most eagerly every species of mental pabulum Still the fact is sugges tive, and at least it is hardly open to doubt that their knowledge
XX THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
of science has been a marked aid to the writers who have possessed such knowledge. Sometimes, indeed, a great writer has consciously recognised this obligation, and even avowed as when Coleridge declared that he attended Davy's lectures on chemistry to increase his stock of metaphors. Emerson, too, must have recognised this aid, so much of the science of his generation reflected in his writings. And Taine openly declared that he interrupted his literary career to devote several years to the study of medicine, because he had reached the conviction that every writer should have comprehensive knowledge of at least one department of science.
It must be admitted that these particular men, and most other litterateurs of scientific proclivities, have made only subordinate use of their scientific lore in their writings. Yet examples are not wanting in which the influence of science on literary art must be felt to have been more than merely incidental This true, not merely of minor poems, but of some of the great classics of the world -literature. Thus that rudimentary fourteenth - century science which Dante knew to its depths, based largely upon the Ptolemaic astronomy, still dominant, though so soon to be overthrown, forms the veritable framework of the mechanical structure, so to speak, of the Divine Comedy. So, too, the six teenth-century science which Milton knew so well, enters into the structure of the Paradise Lost in the most definitive fashion. How great its influence was will be most patent we reflect what momentous differences there would have been in certain cantos of Paradise Lost, had Milton written after the work of Hutton, Lamarck, Cuvier, Lyell, and Darwin had thrown the light of scientific interpretation upon the story of creation. Milton knew the science of the sixteenth century to its depths, but meagre enough were the data could offer on cosmogony. Paradise Lost reflects the science of its time but the science which transcends the bounds of unaided human senses, which reaches out into the infinities of space and down into the infinitesimal regions of the microcosm, revealing a universe of suns and universe of atoms the science which explains the origin of worlds, of sentient beings, of man
; a
;
it
if
it, is
is
a
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xxi
himself; the science which brings man's intellect under the sway of scale and measure, and which makes his tendencies, emotions, customs, beliefs, superstitions, religions even, the object of calm, unimpassioned investigation: this science is new, is of our own century, even of our own generation. Some day, perhaps, another Milton, learned in this science of a later era, will give us a new epic depicting the evolution of organic forms in true sequence, and the slow tortuous struggles of man toward a paradise which he has not yet gained. But the data for such an epic were never given into the hands of the artist until science revealed them, in part at least, in our generation.
If it be thought unlikely that such a union of science and art as is here suggested can ever be realised, let me hasten to cite a suggestive example, which will serve at once as the best instance in modern times of the direct influence of technical science upon great literature, and as an earnest of what the future may perhaps give us along the lines at which I have just hinted. I refer to certain familiar stanzas of Tennyson's " In Memoriam," which, written before the middle of the century, show the most marvellous grasp of the newest cosmologic science of that time. Thus the lines
Our little systems have their day ;
They have their day and cease to be :
would have been utterly unintelligible before the advent of that new astronomy which began with the discoveries of Herschel late in the eighteenth century, and which slowly made its conquests in the years of Tennyson's early manhood.
Even more recently revealed had been the truths of that geological philosophy which
are so marvellously summarised in the following stanzas :— But I shall turn mine ears and hear
The moanings of the homeless sea,
The sound of streams that swift or slow Draw down Ionian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be.
xxii
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen 1 There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands ; They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
The work of Lyell, which first gave an inkling of that slow melting away and rebuilding of the continents here pictured, was scarcely finished when these lines were written. Equally new was that knowledge of the extinct animal populations of the globe depicted by these other stanzas :—
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams t So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life ;
" So careful of the type ? " but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, " A thousand types are gone :
I care for nothing, all shall go. "
These words could by no possibility have been written before our century, for the facts they connote were utterly unknown to science of earlier times. They furnish an amazing proof of the
closeness with which the greatest poet of his generation followed the intricacies of such technical sciences as astronomy, geology, and paleontology, and of the influence which such sciences had on his art. Nor are the lines I have quoted the most suggestive ones to be found, for the closing stanzas of the poem seem to show, uneqivocally even if in slightly masked phraseology, that the insight of the poet had carried Tennyson beyond the plane of his geological masters, and enabled him to grasp the truth of that wider doctrine of cosmogony which was then a heresy of science and which was only to receive acceptance, even in technical circles, through Darwin's exposition a full decade after In Memoriam was written.
THE LITEEATURE OF SCIENCE xxm
I can never read these illuminative passages of that wonderful poem without asking myself why it was that the poet who thus had gained an insight into the truths of evolution in pre-Darwinian days, did not return to the subject later on when fresh data were at hand, and herald in verse the wonderful story of cosmogony, first revealed to our favoured generation. Was it that the position of Laureate had cramped the freedom of the master spirit ? Or had age drawn the veil of conservatism across the field of a once- piercing vision before the new doctrines found general acceptance ? Or yet again, was it that the master artisan found the materials of
I cannot say ; but whatever the explanation of Tennyson's silence, it leaves a rich field open to whatever successor has the genius to cultivate it.
the new story not yet ripe for the purposes of art ?
The new suggestive data lend themselves to artistic treatment. They lie ready to the hand of the master builder. Must there not come a twentieth-century Milton gifted with the scientific acumen to master these data, with the poet soul to weave them into visions, and with the master craftsmanship to make the visions body forth in words ? If so, some day we shall have, through the influence of science, a poem which will voice the spirit of our scientific epoch as the Divine Comedy " voiced the spirit of ten silent centuries," and as Paradise Lost voiced the spirit of the Renaissance.
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS ;
OB,
Diversion on the Death of the Emperor Claudius.
By SENECA.
(Translated for this work by Forrest Morgan. )
[Lucius Ank^us Seneca was born at Corduba, Spain, about b. c. 4, and became an eminent lawyer in Rome. In a. d. 41 he was banished to Corsica by Claudius at the instigation of Empress Messalina. Recalled after an exile of eight years, he was appointed by Agrippina joint tutor with Burrhus of the youthful Nero. The two secured good government in the early years of Nero's reign, but gradually lost their influence ; and Seneca, charged with conspiracy, committed suicide by the emperor's order, a. d. 65. He was a leading exponent of the Stoic philosophy. His writings comprise : discourses on philosophy and morals, the most important being "On Anger"; "On Mercy," addressed to Nero ; "On Giving and Receiving Favors " ; over one hundred letters to Lucil- ius; " Investigations in Natural Science" ; and eight tragedies, being the only complete specimens of Roman tragedies extant. ]
["Apocolocyntosis," or " Pumpkiniflcation," is a burlesque Greek word formed on the model of " Apotheosis " or "deification," as being more appropriate for Claudius. How it came to be attached to this skit (the second title is the original one) is a mystery, as there is nothing in the matter to suggest it, and the opinion of Seneca is evidently that Claudius was a pumpkin from the first, not that he was turned into one. One editor thinks it means "deifying a pumpkin," but that is contradicted by the etymology. The " happiest of periods," spoken of in the first lines and continually glorified, was Nero's reign, which at the outset was really, as were the early years of almost all these reigns, a golden age of reaction against the horrors of the one before. For notes, see end of article. ]
What was done in heaven before the third day of the October Ides, in the consulate of Asinius Marcellus and Acilius Aviola, — new year, beginning of the happiest of periods, — I wish to recount from memory.
25
Nothing is set down for spite
26 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
or compliment. If any one asks how I know these things to be true, — first, I shall not answer unless I choose. Who is to compel me ? I know I am a free agent, because the man is dead who made the proverb come true, " One should be born either a king or a fool. "1 If I choose to answer, I shall say what comes to my tongue. Who ever exacted sworn witnesses from a historian ? Yet if it becomes necessary to produce an authority, ask the one who saw Drusilla [Caligula's
sister] going to heaven ; the same man may say he saw Claudius going
on the journey " with unequal steps. " 2 Willy-nilly, he is obliged to see everything that is brought into heaven. He is the curator of the Appian Way thither — by which, you know, holy Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to the gods. If you interrogate him, he will tell you about it if you are alone ; in the presence of a crowd he will never utter a word — because, from the time he swore in the Senate that he saw Drusilla climbing heaven, and for all it was such a gratifying piece of news, no one believed him that he had seen it, he declared in express terms that he would not tell even if he had seen a man killed in the Forum. Whatever I have heard from him, I report as surely and clearly as I am certain he is safe and happy.
Now Phoebus to a briefer path had shrunk his fountain deep Of radiance ; now waxed greater the shadowy horns of Sleep. For conquering Cynthia too began to wield an ampler reign, And hoar unsightly Winter to pluck the lovely train
Of Autumn's bounteous honors, see Bacchus aging too, And pluck, belated vintager, the grapes' ungathered few.
I shall probably be better understood if I say the month was October ; the third day of the Ides of October. I cannot tell you the hour with certainty — even philosophers would agree more readily than clocks. But it was between the sixth and seventh. — Oh, this is too rustic. Poets delight in labor, and not content with describing sunrise and sunset, must even molest the middle of the day : would you pass over so good an hour ?
For Phoebus on his car had halved the circuit of the blue,
And nearer night the golden reins was shaking as he flew, While in his course the swerving light in slanted rays he drew.
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 27
Claudius began to give up the ghost, but could not manage to die. Then Mercury, who was always beloved for his disposi tion, summoned one of the three Fates and said : " Why, you cruelest of women, do you suffer this man to be tortured? One should never be excruciated so long. It is the sixty-fourth year since he began to struggle with life. Why do you hate him ? Let the astrologers speak the truth some time or other : they have had him buried every year, every month, since he became prince. To be sure, it is not wonderful if they have been mistaken : no one knew his hour of birth, for no one ever believed he was born at all. Do what is to be done.
" To death consign him : let a nobler3 reign in his empty place. "
But Clotho replied : " Good gracious, I would devote little enough time to him, till he confers the citizenship on the very few that are left outside, — for he has constituted all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons, toga-wearers. But since he chooses to leave some foreigners for seed, and you order it so done, be it so. " She opens a little box and produces three spindles : one was for Augurinus, one for Baba, the third for Claudius. " These three," quoth she, " I have ordered to die in one year, divided by short intervals of time. I would not dismiss him unaccompanied ; for it is not fitting that he, who has now seen so many thousands of men following him, so many preced ing him, so many surrounding him, should be suddenly forsaken, alone. Meanwhile, he must be content with these convives. "
Thus spake she ; then from off the ugly spindle reeled the thread, And broke the life of sovereignty a stupid soul had led.
But now Lachesis, all her locks with wreaths and jewels gay, Crowning her tresses and her brow with twined Pierian bay,
Pulls from the snow-white fleece the fibers, measuring off the strands, That take new colors, drawn and spun by her auspicious hands :
The sisters gaze admiringly on the stint of shining bands.
The worthless wool transmutes to precious metal in her hold ;
Tn beauteous filaments from heaven comes down the age of gold. They know not any measure; draw out the happy fleece
And joy to fill their hands therewith ; fair is the woven piece. The work goes forward cheerily, and not in toilsome wise,
As stretching out the downy threads the twirling spindle flies ; Tithonus' years and Nestor's years were far a meaner prize. Phoebus is nigh, and joys in song, glad of the age to come ;
Now strikes the harp rejoicing, now serves out the golden thrum.
28 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
He holds the Three in music's thrall, and cheats the passing hour ; And while they praise the cithara and their brother's wondrous
power,
Their fingers weave beyond the wont ; the noble work exceeds
The lot of human fortunes. " Sister Fates," Apollo pleads,
" Let it not fall ; let him surpass the mortal breathing space —
He with a countenance like mine, and like to me in grace,
Nor less in music nor in voice ; the happy ages loom
Above the exhausted ; he shall burst the law's long-silent tomb.
As the flying throng of stars disperse when the dawn-star mounts
on high,
As Hesperus rises while the host retreat far down the sky,
As, when the shadows fade away, Aurora's primal birth
Brings rosy day on, and the sun looks down upon the earth, Glowing with light, and first sets free the wheels of day from
prison, —
Such Caesar stands before us, such the Roman world arisen Looks upon Nero ; radiant shines, with splendor mild and rare, His face and neck of beauty with its wealth of flowing hair. "
Apollo thus ; but Lachesis, who would favor the beautiful youth herself, has finished, spins with a full hand, and gives Nero many years of his own. They all order Claudius, like wise, 'xaipovra'i, evcjtrjfiovvTa^ eKirifiireiv Soficop [to bring from home rejoicings and acclaimings of good omen]. 4 And he actually bubbled out his soul, and thereby ceased to seem to live. He expired even while he was listening to comic actors, whom you know I have good cause to fear. His last speech heard among men — after he had emitted a mighty sound from
that part whence it was easiest to speak — was, " Alas !
have befouled myself. Why I did it I don't know. I have certainly befouled everything in existence. "
What was done on earth afterward it is worse than useless to relate. For you know quite well ; and there is no danger of its escaping from memories, the public joy has so impressed them. No one forgets his happiness. Listen to what was done in heaven : faith must be reposed in the writer. It was an nounced to Jove, " Some one has arrived, of good stature, very
I don't know what he is threatening, for he incessantly shakes his head and drags his right foot. I have asked him his nationality, and he answered — I can't tell what, with a confused sound and a mumbling voice.
I don't under stand his language ; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor any known tongue. "
gray-haired.
I must
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
29
Then Jupiter orders Hercules, because he had wandered over the whole globe and seemed to have known all nations, to go and investigate what people he is of. Hercules at first sight of him is certainly disturbed, though he would not have feared even Junonian monsters. As he observed a face of a new type, an unwonted gait, the voice of no terrestrial animal, but (such as is usual with marine beasts) one hoarse and confused, he thought he had come to his thirteenth labor. Carefully stud ied, it is seen to be a man. He advanced, therefore, and said in Greek, as easiest to him, Tfc nroOev eh avSp&v, iroQi rol ttto- Xt? ; [What kind of a man are you, where is your city? ] Claudius, hearing this, rejoices that there are linguistic scholars here : he hopes there will be some place for his histories. So, signifying himself in a Homeric line to be Caesar, he says : —
'IXtoOcv /it <f>epu>ovtjiios KiKOvtacri iriXxura-tv. 5
[The winds, bearing me from Ilion, drove me upon the Ciconians. ]
There was also following a truer line, equally Homeric : —
TZvOa S* lytov ttoXiv tirpaOov, <3A«ra 8' avrous.
[At Ismarus, there I destroyed the city and slew the people. ]
And he would have imposed the tale on Hercules with very little risk had not Fever been there, who, leaving his fane behind, had come with him alone ; all the other gods he had left at Rome. " That man," said he, " is telling pure lies. I, who have lived with him so many years, say this to you : He was born at Lyons. You see one of Munatius' citizens ; as I am telling you, he was born at the sixteenth stone from Vienne, a native Gaul. So, as befitted a Gaul to do, he seized Rome. I turn over to you this native of Lyons, where Licinius reigned so many years. You indeed, who have trodden more places than any regular mule-driver, ought to know the Lyon- nese, and that many thousands exist between the Xanthus 6 and the Rhone. "
Claudius grows very hot at this point, and rumbles with all possible rage. What he was trying to say, no one could under stand. But he ordered Fever to be led off to execution by a gesture of his trembling hands, which however were firm enough for this one act, he was so used to decapitating men. He had ordered that one's neck lopped off. You would think they were all his freedmen, so little did anybody mind him.
Then Hercules : " Hear me, you," quoth he, " and stop playing fool : you have come here, where mice gnaw iron. 7
30 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Tell me the truth quickly, lest I strip you of your frills. " And that he might be more terrifying, he grew tragic, and saith he : —
" Haste and express what stock thy name reveals, Lest stricken with this club thou fall'st to earth : This staff hath oft demolished savage kings.
What sounds with hesitant utterance makest thou ? What land, what tribe produced that unfixed head, Expound. Sooth, while I sought the far-off realms Of the triple king, whence from the Western Sea To Inachus' town I bore the noble herd,
I saw a mountain bordering rivers twain,
Which Phoebus aye sees to the sunrise turned ;
Where mighty Rhone with rapid current flows,
And Arar [Saone], doubting where to urge his course, With quiet stream in silence laves his banks : "
Is not that land thy spirit's spring and nurse ?
This spiritedly and boldly enough. Nevertheless, he is not quite easy in his mind, and fears fiwpov irX^iy^v [a fool's blow]. Claudius, as he saw the valiant man, forgot his frivolity, and recognized that while there had been no one in Rome like him self, here he was not to have the same grace : every cock [Gaul] is first on his own dunghill. So, as far as he could be understood, he was observed to say this : —
"I have hoped that you, Hercules, bravest of the gods, would be with me in the presence of others : and if any one had asked me for a sponsor, I should have named you, who have known me best. For if you recall to memory, I was the one who was laying down law for you before your temple every day in the months of July and August. You know what mis eries I underwent there, when I heard pleaders both day and night ; of whom if you had happened to be one, mightily strong though you may seem, you would have preferred cleansing the sewers of Augeas. "
[Gap in Ms. here. Bouillet conjectures the argument to run thus : When Hercules has sufiered himself to be persuaded by Claudius, and favor him by voting for his admission into the number of the gods, he at once rashly bursts into their conclave with him, to commend his cause to them. But they, feeling the affair an indignity, inveigh bit terly against Hercules, and wrangle with him and each other in a tumultuous and disorderly fashion. Some unknown god speaks first and then another breaks in. ]
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 31
" No wonder you have forced an entrance into the curia ;
for nothing is closed to you. Now tell us what sort of god
you wish him to be. 'Eirt/eovpeto? ®eo? [an Epicurean god] he
cannot be, — ovre outos repaypa eyei, ovre aXXot; irapexei6 [one
who has no troubles himself and brings none to others]. Stoic?
how can he be round [complete], as Varro saith, without head
and without tail There something of Stoic god in him,
though, for he has neither heart nor head. " "Good Lord
Even he had asked this recommendation from Saturn, whose
month he celebrated every year while prince, he would not
have obtained that godhood from Jupiter, whom so far as in
him lay he condemned of incest. 9 For he slew L. Silanus, his
son-in-law. 10 ask, what for? his sister, the most enjoying
girl in Rome, whom everybody called Venus, he preferred to
call Juno. 11 Why, quoth he, for want to know, why foolishly
be so zealous over his sister? At Athens half one allowed,
at Alexandria full one. Because at Rome, quoth he, mice
lick meal, this man straightens our curves. 12 What he may do
in his chamber, know not he criticises even the quarters of
heaven, he wishes to become god. It not enough that he
has temple in Britain, where the barbarians worship him and
pray to him as a god, pxopov <fiv\aTT€iv p. rjvw [to ward off fool's
wrath]. "
At last enters Jove's mind to pass judgment on private
persons lingering within the curia, and to have no quarrels. "I had permitted you, Conscript Fathers," saith he, "to ask questions, but you have made mere country fair. wish you to preserve the discipline of the curia. Whatever kind of man this is, what will he think of us "
He being sent out, first Father Janus asked his judg ment he was designated in the Julian Kalends Afternoon Consul ;18 man sly enough, who always sees afia irpoaau) koX oirio-ffG)1* [at once before and after]. He spoke fluently — because he lives in the Forum —much that the stenographer could not follow, and so do not relate nor may put into other words what was spoken by him. He talked much of the greatness of the gods this honor ought not to be given to the crowd. " Formerly," quoth he, " was great thing to be made god; now you have made of very slight repute. That may not seem to give judgment on the person rather than the matter, my opinion is, that after to-day, no one should be made a god from those who apovprj<i Kapwbv eSovaiv16
I
a
: a
a
if
I ;
; a
itit it
; is
is a
a
a
I
is Iaa
?
it a
I
it
I
a ?
a
I
is
6<>
!
? ,2 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
[shall eat the fruit of the country], or from those whom £ie:'8<B/>o? apovpa 15 [the fruitful country] maintains. Whoever, contrary to this Senate decree, is made, fabricated, or depicted a god, to be given to the ghosts, his first function to be among the new gladiators, to flog them with whips. "
Next is asked for his judgment, Diespiter, son of Vica Pota,16 and himself designated Money-changer Consul. He lived by this trade, and was wont to sell franchiselets. 17 To him Hercules politely came up and touched his ear ; so he gives judgment in these words : —
" Since Holy Claudius is akin to Holy Augustus in blood, nor less to Holy Augusta, his grandmother, whom he himself has ordered to be a goddess, and far surpasses all mortals in wisdom, and there must be some one from the republic who can, like Romulus, " ferventia rapa vorare " 18 [devour smoking turnips], I judge that Holy Claudius from this day be a god, just as whoever before him was made with the best right ; and that the subject be added to Ovid's fierafioptpwaeK [Meta morphoses]. " There were various judgments, and Claudius seemed to conquer in the decision. For Hercules, who saw his sword in the fire,19 ran hither and thither and said : "Don't do me an ill service — my all is at stake : in return I will do whatever you wish, one after another ; one hand washes the other. "
Then Holy Augustus rose to speak in his turn, and dis coursed with the greatest eloquence. "Conscript Fathers, I have your witness that from the time I was made a god I have not uttered a word. I always mind my own business. But I cannot dissimulate longer, and hold back grief which shame makes heavier. For this have I begotten peace on land and sea? to this end have I curbed civil war? to this end have I based the city on laws, adorned it with works ? And what to say, Conscript Fathers, I cannot find ; all words are below my indignation. I must take refuge in the sentence of that most sagacious man, Messala Corvinus : He has destroyed the justice of the Empire ! This man, Conscript Fathers, who seems to us not able to stir up a fly, slew men as easily as a dog 20 falls. But what can I say of so many acts of justice ? a There is no time to deplore public slaughters in contemplating domestic calamities, so I will omit the former and allude to the latter. Even if he does not know these things, I know h> rv^omav [one happening] : he does not
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 33
know himself among the gods. He whom you see, hiding under my name for so many years, has repaid me with these thanks : he has slain my two great-granddaughters Julia, one by the sword and one by starvation ; one great-great- grandson, L. Silanus.
"You can see, Jupiter, whether I am speaking in a bad cause ; certainly in yours. If this man is to be among us — tell me, Holy Claudius, why every one of those you slew, you condemned before you knew about the case, before you heard it ? Is it customary to do this ? It is not done in heaven. Behold Jupiter, who is reigning so many years; he merely broke the leg of Vulcan, whom
'Piif/e iroSbs reraytov <tiro BiyXov Ocottc&ioio,*1
[Seizing his foot, he hurled from the threshold divine,]
because he was angry with his wife, and hung him up : whom did he ever kill ? You killed Messalina, of whom I was great- uncle equally with being yours. 'I don't know,' you say? May the gods curse you ; for that is viler, that you don't know, than that you killed her. He has not left off following the dead Caius Caesar [Caligula]. The latter slew her father-in- law : the former his son-in-law. Caius Caesar forbade the son of Crassus to be called the Great : this man restored the name to him, but took away his head. He killed in one house Cras sus the Great, Serbonia, Tristionia, Assario, though nobles ; — Crassus, it is true, such a fool that he might have been em peror.
" Think, Conscript Fathers, what a portent that he should desire to be received into the number of the gods ! Do you wish now to make this thing a god ? See his body, born under angry gods. At most he can say three words speedily, [' This is mine,'] and lead me off a slave. Who will worship this god ? Who will believe in him ? When you come at last to making such gods, no one will believe you are gods yourselves. Most of all, Conscript Fathers, if I have acted becomingly among you, if I have answered no one harshly, avenge my injuries. I adjudge this for my decision. " And he thus recited from the tablet : —
" Since Holy Claudius slew his father-in-law, Appius Sila nus, two sons-in-law, Pompeius Magnus and L. Silanus, the father-in-law of his daughter, Crassus Frugi, a man as like
vol. nr. —3
84 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
himself as egg to egg ; Scribonia, his daughter's mother-in-law, Messalina, his wife ; and the rest of whom he could not tell the number : it is my pleasure that he be severely censured, and not given a dispensation for judicial business ; and should be forthwith carried away, and leave heaven within thirty days, Olympus within three. "
This sentence was agreed upon. Without delay, Cyllenius [Mercury] drags him with a neck-twist to the shades,
Illuc unde regant redire quemquain.
[The bourne from whence no traveller returns. ]
While they descend through the sacred way, what does that concourse of men desire for itself, now Claudius has had his funeral? And it was the most beautiful of all and full of costly preparations, as you know a god is proclaimed, — flute, horn, and such a throng, such a gathering of every class of sena tors, that even Claudius could hear it. All joyful, hilarious, the Roman people walked about as if free. Agatho and a few pet tifoggers mourned, and clearly from the heart. Jurisconsults came out of the shadows, pale, thin, scarce having life, as if they had revived with the greatest difficulty. One of these, when he had seen the pettifoggers putting their heads together and deploring their fortunes, came up and said, " I told you the Saturnalia would not last forever. " Claudius, as he saw his funeral, understood that he was dead. For with great p. eya\rj- yop(a [pomposity] the dirges are sung : —
Pour ye out weeping, Send ye forth wailing, Fabricate mourning ; Sadly resoundeth
The Forum with clamor : Dead in his beauty
The sapient man
Than whom no other
On the whole planet Stouter existed.
He could the fleet ones Down in the race course Speedily conquer
He could demolish The Parthian rebels,
;
is,
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Follow those faithless ones Armed with their light darts, While he sure-handed
Drew up the bowstring ;
He could the foemen Rushing against him
Fix with a slight wound, Likewise the Medes' backs Painted and flying.
He too the Britons Living beyond the known Shores of the ocean,
With the blue-shielded Tribe of Brigantes,
Forced to surrender Necks to the Roman Fetters, and Ocean's Very self tremble
Over the new laws
Made for Rome's safety.
Weep for the hero,
Than whom no other
Could with more swiftness Cases decide on,
Not having listened
Save but to one side,
Often to neither.
Who will as judge now Listen to cases
All the long year through ? You he shall yield to, Leaving his high seat,
You who a silent
People give laws to, Holding a hundred Towns of the Cretans. Beat on your bosoms, O pettifoggers,
Genus of hirelings. Bards, do you also Mourn at this sad news; You too the chiefest, Who had made ready For winning great lucre Shaking the dice-box.
36 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Claudius was delighted with his praises, and wished to gaze longer. The Talthybius of the gods [Mercury] took his hand and dragged him along with head turned, lest some one should recognize him, through the Campus Martius ; and between Tiber and the covered way he descended to the shades. The freedman Narcissus had gone before by a shorter road to inter cept his patron ; and runs up to him on his arrival, shining as if just out of the bath, and says, "What have the gods sent to men? " " Go quickly," said Mercury, " and announce our com ing. " But he wished to fawn on his patron longer; when Mercury again ordered him to hasten, and shortened his linger ing with a rod. No sooner done than Narcissus flies. Every thing is favorable ; he descends easily. 24 So, gouty as he was, he arrived at the door of Dis, where Cerberus — or, as Horace says, "the hundred-headed beast"26 — lay, moving about and shaking his rough shag. He was a little disturbed (he was used to having a white dog for his pleasure) on seeing him to be a shaggy black dog, evidently one you would not wish to have come at you in the dark. And in a loud voice, he says, "Claudius Caesar comes. " Behold, at once they came forth, clapping their hands and singing : —
[We have found him, we rejoice with him ! ] *
Here was C. Silius, consul designate, Juncus Praetorius, Sex. Trallus, M. Helvius, Trogus Cotta, Vectius Valens, Fabius, — Roman knights whom Narcissus had ordered to be executed. In the midst of this crowd of singers was Mnester the panto- mimist, whom Claudius on account of his beauty had made a head short. Nor was the rumor slow in spreading to Messalina that Claudius had come. First of all, the freedmen flock together, — Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, and Phero- nactes, all whom, that he might not be unprovided anywhere, he had sent ahead. Then the two prefects, Justus Catonius and Rufus son of Pompeius. Then his friends, Saturnius Luscius, and Pedo Pompeius, and Lupus, and Celer Asinius, consulars. Last came a brother's daughter, a sister's daughter, son-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, all full kin by blood. And the train being formed, they rush to Claudius. When Claudius saw them, he exclaimed, " Tldvra <j>(\a>v irX^prj ! [All full of friends! ] How did you come here? " Then Pedo Pompeius : " What are you saying, you cruelest of men ? Do
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
37
you ask, How? Why, who else sent us here but you, the
He leads him to the tribune of jEacus ; the latter under the Cornelian law asked what was established concerning assassins, he demands that his name be taken, he announces the record : Senators slain, 30 ; Roman knights, 315 and more ; other citi zens, oaa -^-aimOo'i re «ow? Te [as the sand on the seashore]. Claudius, greatly terrified, cast his eyes around everywhere ; he searches for some patron who can defend him. Advocate he finds none. Finally, P. Petronius comes forward — his old con vive, a man fluent in the Claudian tongue [stutterer], and de mands the advocacy. It is not granted. Pedo Pompeius makes accusation with a great clamor. Petronius begins to intend to answer. vEacus, an exceedingly just man, forbids. With the other side so far unheard he condemns Claudius, and says : —
EtKC irdOoi ra k </>c£e,SCkt) k Weia yevotro.
[Let him suffer the evils he dealt, that justice and right may exist. ]
There was a great silence. All were stupefied, astounded by the novelty of the thing ; they said this had never been done. To Claudius it seemed more iniquitous than novel. What sort of punishment he ought to undergo was long debated. There were those who said that if they must create a burden for one god, Tantalus would perish with thirst unless help was brought to him ; Sisyphus could never lift his load ; some time or other poor Ixion's wheel ought to be stopped. It was resolved, how ever, not to give a discharge to any of these veterans, lest Claudius
might some time hope for the same. It seemed best that a new penalty should be devised, to institute a fruitless labor for him, and an image of his desires without end or accomplishment. Then ^acus orders him to gamble with a dice-box minus a bot tom. And now he has begun to chase the flying dice and to effect nothing.
For however oft he endeavored to throw from the resonant dice-box, Both dice fled from pursuit and escaped through the bottom removed ; And when he adventured to cast once more with the squares re
collected,
Still to be mocked in like manner, and always in quest of illusion, Cheating his trust ; he flies after, and once again, right through his
fingers,
Slips the deceitful tessara, filled with perpetual craft
murderer of all your friends ? We must be in a court ; show you the judges' chair. "
I will
38 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Thus whenever attained are the peaks of the loftiest mountains, Fruitless the ponderous burden rolls back upon Sisyphus' neck.
Suddenly Caius Caesar appeared, and began to claim him as a slave; he produces witnesses who saw Claudius writhing under whips, rods, buffets, from himself. He was adjudged to Caesar ; Macus gives him over.
Without looking further, these familiar illustrations suffice to xiii
xiv THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
indicate that there is no necessary incompatibility between the so- called scientific cast of mind and the capacity for artistic expression in words. Yet the argument must not be carried too far. The great mass of the literature of science, using the term in the broader sense, is matter which cannot by any elasticity of definition be brought within the narrower ken of literature at alL In the main, men of science write as one would expect them to write. The style is the man, and the man of science is as a rule a dry-as-dust fact-hunter. Here and there, men of literary capacity have been devotees of science; but this cannot hide the fact that most scientists have hardly a spark of artistic sensibility, and that the great mass of scientific writing is painfully devoid of literary merit. More than that, most of the great classics of scientific literature owe their position, in the nature of the case, to their matter rather than their manner, and hence are not, properly speaking, works of art. They constitute what De Quincey appropriately termed the " literature of knowledge. "
There is a long list of this character which, without regard to their varying degrees of artistic merit, must be counted among the world's great books, because of the enormous influence they have had on the progress of thought, and of civilisation itself. Thus the varied scientific writings of Aristotle furnished what seemed the last word on almost every department of knowledge, undis puted and indisputable, for something like a hundred generations of his followers. The Almagest and the Geographia of Ptolemy, and the Natural History of the elder Pliny, in so far as they did not conflict with Aristotle, were accepted as final authorities in their respective fields for a thousand years. The Bevolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, of Copernicus, was instrumental in working a veritable revolution in the accepted conception of the scheme of the universe, and of the earth's relative importance in that scheme. Newton's Principia explained the mechanics of the heavenly bodies to the wonderment of mankind.
The Mechanique Celeste and the Systeme du Mbnd of Laplace, expounding the nebular hypothesis, first cleared up the mystery of the creation of the world itself.
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xv
The origin of the strata of the earth's crust was never even vaguely understood till James Hutton wrote his Revolutions of the Globe; the theories he put forward, involving the complete over throw of the accepted notions as to the age of our planet, extended and developed by Lyell, found full expression in the latter writer's Principles of Geology.
A vision of the successive' populations of beings that have peopled our globe, and have left no trace of their existence except in the form of random fossils, was first given in the Ossementa Fossiles of Cuvier. The origin of these successive populations of creatures, tentatively explained by Lamarck in 1809, was satis factorily accounted for just half a century later in the Origin of Species of Darwin.
This is but listing off-hand the names of a few of the more important classics of the literature of fact, in what may be con sidered a single line of thought. Each of these works was epochal, and is assured permanency of fame because of its influence on the advance of knowledge. Yet the very nature of the questions treated, necessarily removes some of them from the ken of the vast majority even of educated people. The Principia and the Mechanique Cdeste, for example, are in effect treatises on mathematics, and as such are necessarily repugnant, and indeed unintelligible, to all but a small coterie of readers. On the other hand, such topics as the origin of the earth's crust and the development of organic forms lend themselves much more readily to artistic treatment, and the history of some of the classics that treat of these topics points a very clear moral concerning the value of literary skill as an aid even to the most technical of scientists. Thus the book of Hutton, despite the startling, not to say sensational, character of its subject, found very few readers, chiefly because of its heavy, intricate style. Its data remained little known till Playfair practically re-wrote the book some years after its author's death. When Lyell took the subject in hand, the world had moved on a generation, to be sure, yet it was not so much this progress as the masterly exposition and lucid style of the Principles which forced the new geology upon the popular
xvi THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
attention. Lyell avowedly recognised both the difficulties and the desirability of attaining a popular style, and thanks to the success of his efforts at clear writing, the revolutionary doctrines of which he was the herald received in his own generation an acceptance which might otherwise have been long withheld from them.
The Origin of Species also owed much to the form of its presentation. Purporting to be only an abstract of the voluminous records which the author had spent twenty years in collecting, it necessarily bristled with technical facts, and hence could not be expected to make " easy reading. " Professor Huxley used to say that he never took it up afresh without finding something new that he had overlooked in previous readings ; and if Darwin's greatest disciple could make such a statement, it is hardly to be hoped that anyone else has ever fully mastered all the mere facts of the Origin. Yet these facts are arranged and presented in such fashion as to carry the reader forward, if not easily, at least clearly and unequivocally, to the conclusions at which the author aimed.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that a greater artist might have marshalled the data of the Origin of Species in a still more convincing array, for it chances that a greater artist did so marshal its essentials with telling effect very soon after the book appeared. Much as Galileo, in his Dialogues, had given artistic expression to the revolutionary doctrines of Copernicus, Huxley, in his Man's Place in Nature, and in a score of other essays, brought all the resources of a marvellously flexible literary style to the aid of the equally revolutionary doctrines that Darwin had inaugurated. Nor was Huxley alone in this work. There came to his aid, from another field of science, a man of perhaps even greater literary skill ; a man who has probably had no peer as a master of English among the scientific writers of our generation. I mean, of course, Professor Tyndall. His writings and those of Huxley, not merely on this topic, but all along the lines of their varied scientific interests, are perhaps the best illustrations that have been given in our time of the extent to which literary art may triumph over difficulties of subject. Many of their essays stand as models of luminous exposition, lifting the reader over
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xvii
every difficulty, and visualising the subject before ^him in enticing forms. Not all that they wrote is of equal value. Much of their most incisive work was of a controversial character, the interest of which cannot be other than ephemeral. Most of those well-aimed blows that were levelled in the cause of Darwinism spent their full force on the generation that called them forth. The cause triumphant, the means that led to victory, will be in the main forgotten. But fortunately there remains a fair residuum of writings of these masters that can claim a more lasting regard ; in particular, such masterpieces as Tyndall's "beautiful book"—as Lord Kelvin calls it—Heat as a Mode of Motion, and the various popular lectures of Huxley
It would be futile, however, to hope that even these can claim perennial popularity, or can have anything more than historical interest after the lapse of two or three generations. They are classics of scientific literature in their day, and classics they will remain, but their interest must wane as their facts lose novelty. The history of similar works in the past leaves no doubt as to this. Who to-day reads, for example, the discourses of the poet- scientist, Davy, which so captivated the English-speaking world at the beginning of the century ; or the equally lucid expositions of Arago, which set the French capital in a flutter a generation ago. Once so popular, these works have already become fossils on library shelves.
So it must be with all writings, however artistic their drapery, that depend fundamentally upon a skeleton of scientific facts for their interest. The creative literature of poem, of drama, of story, revolving ever about a few central human passions which time has little modified, may appeal to generation after generation, but the literature of fact is doomed to obsolescence by its own success.
There are certain other departments of the literature of science, however, which may claim a certain degree of immunity from this preordained fate. Histories^ of science, e. g. , stand on no different plane, intrinsically, from other histories. Thus Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, Cuvier's History of the Advance of Science
in his Generation, Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion VOL. VII. — 2
xviii THE LITERATUKE OF SCIENCE
and Science, White's recent work of similar title, and the numerous historical essays by other writers, including Arago, Huxley, and Tyndall among the number, must be judged on their literary merits according to the same standards by which one judges Gibbon or Mommsen. Again, there is a quite different field of scientific literature, of a lighter kind, yet perhaps most permanent of all, because of its introduction of the personal element, added to the universality of the interests to which it appeals. I refer now to the descriptive writers on natural history and allied topics, who have studied nature at first hand, and whose accounts of their dis coveries have the interest of personal narratives quite aside from the exact character of the facts which they record. There is a long list of such writings, of varying degrees of scientific accuracy, as of literary merit. Perhaps the most famous of them is the Compleate Angler of Isaac Walton, a work inconsequential enough in a scientific way, to be sure, yet falling clearly within our present category, and having a security of literary position that can be claimed by few other works to be found there. Next in point of time come the charming letters of Gilbert White, gossipping about the birds and beasts and reptiles and insects of his parish, and gathered into a soon-to-be-famous volume, under title of the Natural History of Selborne. Then in our own century there are the books of the hermit of Walden, Thoreau, the friend of Emerson, lover of Nature in her every phase, and diviner of many of her secrets ; and the essays of John Muir, the poet of the Sierra Nevadas, whom Emerson pronounced more wonderful even than Thoreau; and a small library of strictly contemporary writings in the same vein, with the works of John Borroughs at their head.
The authors of these works are delightful essayists, prose-poets if you will, whose inspiration is drawn directly from nature, and who breathe into their pages something of the freshness and novelty of Nature herself. They take the reader with them to the woods, and make him feel that their discoveries are his discoveries. What they have seen has the charm of personal experience ; the interest of the specific over the generic fact. One may know well
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xix
enough that the cuckoo and the cow-bird lay their eggs in the nest of other birds ; but when, with the eyes of White or Burroughs, one spys upon the individual cuckoo or cow-bird, and watches its stealthy imposture upon yellow-hammer or warbler, one has the feeling of the discoverer, and the old story is ever new. There is something of this same element of personal interest, too, in the writings of several of the naturalists of more serious purpose. The Natural History of Buffon, and the Ornithologies of Wilson and Audubon, for example, will for this reason retain a certain interest long after the mere facts they recorded, considered as scientific data, are worn thread-bare with repetition.
Such writings as these, then, have a certain permanent value as literature. Owing their value to form rather than to matter, they are true works of art. But, on the other hand, no one would claim for them more than a minor place in art. However perfect of their kind, they are not of the most important kind. They are works for the leisure hour, far removed from the heights or the depths of the profound emotions. The really important share of science in building up the great literature of the world has not been attained through such means as this, nor indeed through any direct means. Its true power has been shown rather through the indirect channels of its influence upon literature that in itself is not scientific.
Ever since literature had a beginning there have been masters of the craft who have grasped eagerly after all the scientific knowledge of their time, and have made such use of the fragments then available as great artists alone could make. Take Shakespeare himself in illustration. Every one knows how his lines bristle with scientific allusions ; for has not the fact been brought against him in the absurd Baconian controversy ? Not to multiply illustrations, one might almost say that the greater the writer, the more surely do we find him in touch with the science of his time. This, to be sure, is no proof that scientific knowledge is pre-requisite to the practice of the literary art — since the greatest artists imbibe most eagerly every species of mental pabulum Still the fact is sugges tive, and at least it is hardly open to doubt that their knowledge
XX THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
of science has been a marked aid to the writers who have possessed such knowledge. Sometimes, indeed, a great writer has consciously recognised this obligation, and even avowed as when Coleridge declared that he attended Davy's lectures on chemistry to increase his stock of metaphors. Emerson, too, must have recognised this aid, so much of the science of his generation reflected in his writings. And Taine openly declared that he interrupted his literary career to devote several years to the study of medicine, because he had reached the conviction that every writer should have comprehensive knowledge of at least one department of science.
It must be admitted that these particular men, and most other litterateurs of scientific proclivities, have made only subordinate use of their scientific lore in their writings. Yet examples are not wanting in which the influence of science on literary art must be felt to have been more than merely incidental This true, not merely of minor poems, but of some of the great classics of the world -literature. Thus that rudimentary fourteenth - century science which Dante knew to its depths, based largely upon the Ptolemaic astronomy, still dominant, though so soon to be overthrown, forms the veritable framework of the mechanical structure, so to speak, of the Divine Comedy. So, too, the six teenth-century science which Milton knew so well, enters into the structure of the Paradise Lost in the most definitive fashion. How great its influence was will be most patent we reflect what momentous differences there would have been in certain cantos of Paradise Lost, had Milton written after the work of Hutton, Lamarck, Cuvier, Lyell, and Darwin had thrown the light of scientific interpretation upon the story of creation. Milton knew the science of the sixteenth century to its depths, but meagre enough were the data could offer on cosmogony. Paradise Lost reflects the science of its time but the science which transcends the bounds of unaided human senses, which reaches out into the infinities of space and down into the infinitesimal regions of the microcosm, revealing a universe of suns and universe of atoms the science which explains the origin of worlds, of sentient beings, of man
; a
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if
it, is
is
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THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE xxi
himself; the science which brings man's intellect under the sway of scale and measure, and which makes his tendencies, emotions, customs, beliefs, superstitions, religions even, the object of calm, unimpassioned investigation: this science is new, is of our own century, even of our own generation. Some day, perhaps, another Milton, learned in this science of a later era, will give us a new epic depicting the evolution of organic forms in true sequence, and the slow tortuous struggles of man toward a paradise which he has not yet gained. But the data for such an epic were never given into the hands of the artist until science revealed them, in part at least, in our generation.
If it be thought unlikely that such a union of science and art as is here suggested can ever be realised, let me hasten to cite a suggestive example, which will serve at once as the best instance in modern times of the direct influence of technical science upon great literature, and as an earnest of what the future may perhaps give us along the lines at which I have just hinted. I refer to certain familiar stanzas of Tennyson's " In Memoriam," which, written before the middle of the century, show the most marvellous grasp of the newest cosmologic science of that time. Thus the lines
Our little systems have their day ;
They have their day and cease to be :
would have been utterly unintelligible before the advent of that new astronomy which began with the discoveries of Herschel late in the eighteenth century, and which slowly made its conquests in the years of Tennyson's early manhood.
Even more recently revealed had been the truths of that geological philosophy which
are so marvellously summarised in the following stanzas :— But I shall turn mine ears and hear
The moanings of the homeless sea,
The sound of streams that swift or slow Draw down Ionian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be.
xxii
THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen 1 There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands ; They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
The work of Lyell, which first gave an inkling of that slow melting away and rebuilding of the continents here pictured, was scarcely finished when these lines were written. Equally new was that knowledge of the extinct animal populations of the globe depicted by these other stanzas :—
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams t So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life ;
" So careful of the type ? " but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, " A thousand types are gone :
I care for nothing, all shall go. "
These words could by no possibility have been written before our century, for the facts they connote were utterly unknown to science of earlier times. They furnish an amazing proof of the
closeness with which the greatest poet of his generation followed the intricacies of such technical sciences as astronomy, geology, and paleontology, and of the influence which such sciences had on his art. Nor are the lines I have quoted the most suggestive ones to be found, for the closing stanzas of the poem seem to show, uneqivocally even if in slightly masked phraseology, that the insight of the poet had carried Tennyson beyond the plane of his geological masters, and enabled him to grasp the truth of that wider doctrine of cosmogony which was then a heresy of science and which was only to receive acceptance, even in technical circles, through Darwin's exposition a full decade after In Memoriam was written.
THE LITEEATURE OF SCIENCE xxm
I can never read these illuminative passages of that wonderful poem without asking myself why it was that the poet who thus had gained an insight into the truths of evolution in pre-Darwinian days, did not return to the subject later on when fresh data were at hand, and herald in verse the wonderful story of cosmogony, first revealed to our favoured generation. Was it that the position of Laureate had cramped the freedom of the master spirit ? Or had age drawn the veil of conservatism across the field of a once- piercing vision before the new doctrines found general acceptance ? Or yet again, was it that the master artisan found the materials of
I cannot say ; but whatever the explanation of Tennyson's silence, it leaves a rich field open to whatever successor has the genius to cultivate it.
the new story not yet ripe for the purposes of art ?
The new suggestive data lend themselves to artistic treatment. They lie ready to the hand of the master builder. Must there not come a twentieth-century Milton gifted with the scientific acumen to master these data, with the poet soul to weave them into visions, and with the master craftsmanship to make the visions body forth in words ? If so, some day we shall have, through the influence of science, a poem which will voice the spirit of our scientific epoch as the Divine Comedy " voiced the spirit of ten silent centuries," and as Paradise Lost voiced the spirit of the Renaissance.
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS ;
OB,
Diversion on the Death of the Emperor Claudius.
By SENECA.
(Translated for this work by Forrest Morgan. )
[Lucius Ank^us Seneca was born at Corduba, Spain, about b. c. 4, and became an eminent lawyer in Rome. In a. d. 41 he was banished to Corsica by Claudius at the instigation of Empress Messalina. Recalled after an exile of eight years, he was appointed by Agrippina joint tutor with Burrhus of the youthful Nero. The two secured good government in the early years of Nero's reign, but gradually lost their influence ; and Seneca, charged with conspiracy, committed suicide by the emperor's order, a. d. 65. He was a leading exponent of the Stoic philosophy. His writings comprise : discourses on philosophy and morals, the most important being "On Anger"; "On Mercy," addressed to Nero ; "On Giving and Receiving Favors " ; over one hundred letters to Lucil- ius; " Investigations in Natural Science" ; and eight tragedies, being the only complete specimens of Roman tragedies extant. ]
["Apocolocyntosis," or " Pumpkiniflcation," is a burlesque Greek word formed on the model of " Apotheosis " or "deification," as being more appropriate for Claudius. How it came to be attached to this skit (the second title is the original one) is a mystery, as there is nothing in the matter to suggest it, and the opinion of Seneca is evidently that Claudius was a pumpkin from the first, not that he was turned into one. One editor thinks it means "deifying a pumpkin," but that is contradicted by the etymology. The " happiest of periods," spoken of in the first lines and continually glorified, was Nero's reign, which at the outset was really, as were the early years of almost all these reigns, a golden age of reaction against the horrors of the one before. For notes, see end of article. ]
What was done in heaven before the third day of the October Ides, in the consulate of Asinius Marcellus and Acilius Aviola, — new year, beginning of the happiest of periods, — I wish to recount from memory.
25
Nothing is set down for spite
26 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
or compliment. If any one asks how I know these things to be true, — first, I shall not answer unless I choose. Who is to compel me ? I know I am a free agent, because the man is dead who made the proverb come true, " One should be born either a king or a fool. "1 If I choose to answer, I shall say what comes to my tongue. Who ever exacted sworn witnesses from a historian ? Yet if it becomes necessary to produce an authority, ask the one who saw Drusilla [Caligula's
sister] going to heaven ; the same man may say he saw Claudius going
on the journey " with unequal steps. " 2 Willy-nilly, he is obliged to see everything that is brought into heaven. He is the curator of the Appian Way thither — by which, you know, holy Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to the gods. If you interrogate him, he will tell you about it if you are alone ; in the presence of a crowd he will never utter a word — because, from the time he swore in the Senate that he saw Drusilla climbing heaven, and for all it was such a gratifying piece of news, no one believed him that he had seen it, he declared in express terms that he would not tell even if he had seen a man killed in the Forum. Whatever I have heard from him, I report as surely and clearly as I am certain he is safe and happy.
Now Phoebus to a briefer path had shrunk his fountain deep Of radiance ; now waxed greater the shadowy horns of Sleep. For conquering Cynthia too began to wield an ampler reign, And hoar unsightly Winter to pluck the lovely train
Of Autumn's bounteous honors, see Bacchus aging too, And pluck, belated vintager, the grapes' ungathered few.
I shall probably be better understood if I say the month was October ; the third day of the Ides of October. I cannot tell you the hour with certainty — even philosophers would agree more readily than clocks. But it was between the sixth and seventh. — Oh, this is too rustic. Poets delight in labor, and not content with describing sunrise and sunset, must even molest the middle of the day : would you pass over so good an hour ?
For Phoebus on his car had halved the circuit of the blue,
And nearer night the golden reins was shaking as he flew, While in his course the swerving light in slanted rays he drew.
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 27
Claudius began to give up the ghost, but could not manage to die. Then Mercury, who was always beloved for his disposi tion, summoned one of the three Fates and said : " Why, you cruelest of women, do you suffer this man to be tortured? One should never be excruciated so long. It is the sixty-fourth year since he began to struggle with life. Why do you hate him ? Let the astrologers speak the truth some time or other : they have had him buried every year, every month, since he became prince. To be sure, it is not wonderful if they have been mistaken : no one knew his hour of birth, for no one ever believed he was born at all. Do what is to be done.
" To death consign him : let a nobler3 reign in his empty place. "
But Clotho replied : " Good gracious, I would devote little enough time to him, till he confers the citizenship on the very few that are left outside, — for he has constituted all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons, toga-wearers. But since he chooses to leave some foreigners for seed, and you order it so done, be it so. " She opens a little box and produces three spindles : one was for Augurinus, one for Baba, the third for Claudius. " These three," quoth she, " I have ordered to die in one year, divided by short intervals of time. I would not dismiss him unaccompanied ; for it is not fitting that he, who has now seen so many thousands of men following him, so many preced ing him, so many surrounding him, should be suddenly forsaken, alone. Meanwhile, he must be content with these convives. "
Thus spake she ; then from off the ugly spindle reeled the thread, And broke the life of sovereignty a stupid soul had led.
But now Lachesis, all her locks with wreaths and jewels gay, Crowning her tresses and her brow with twined Pierian bay,
Pulls from the snow-white fleece the fibers, measuring off the strands, That take new colors, drawn and spun by her auspicious hands :
The sisters gaze admiringly on the stint of shining bands.
The worthless wool transmutes to precious metal in her hold ;
Tn beauteous filaments from heaven comes down the age of gold. They know not any measure; draw out the happy fleece
And joy to fill their hands therewith ; fair is the woven piece. The work goes forward cheerily, and not in toilsome wise,
As stretching out the downy threads the twirling spindle flies ; Tithonus' years and Nestor's years were far a meaner prize. Phoebus is nigh, and joys in song, glad of the age to come ;
Now strikes the harp rejoicing, now serves out the golden thrum.
28 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
He holds the Three in music's thrall, and cheats the passing hour ; And while they praise the cithara and their brother's wondrous
power,
Their fingers weave beyond the wont ; the noble work exceeds
The lot of human fortunes. " Sister Fates," Apollo pleads,
" Let it not fall ; let him surpass the mortal breathing space —
He with a countenance like mine, and like to me in grace,
Nor less in music nor in voice ; the happy ages loom
Above the exhausted ; he shall burst the law's long-silent tomb.
As the flying throng of stars disperse when the dawn-star mounts
on high,
As Hesperus rises while the host retreat far down the sky,
As, when the shadows fade away, Aurora's primal birth
Brings rosy day on, and the sun looks down upon the earth, Glowing with light, and first sets free the wheels of day from
prison, —
Such Caesar stands before us, such the Roman world arisen Looks upon Nero ; radiant shines, with splendor mild and rare, His face and neck of beauty with its wealth of flowing hair. "
Apollo thus ; but Lachesis, who would favor the beautiful youth herself, has finished, spins with a full hand, and gives Nero many years of his own. They all order Claudius, like wise, 'xaipovra'i, evcjtrjfiovvTa^ eKirifiireiv Soficop [to bring from home rejoicings and acclaimings of good omen]. 4 And he actually bubbled out his soul, and thereby ceased to seem to live. He expired even while he was listening to comic actors, whom you know I have good cause to fear. His last speech heard among men — after he had emitted a mighty sound from
that part whence it was easiest to speak — was, " Alas !
have befouled myself. Why I did it I don't know. I have certainly befouled everything in existence. "
What was done on earth afterward it is worse than useless to relate. For you know quite well ; and there is no danger of its escaping from memories, the public joy has so impressed them. No one forgets his happiness. Listen to what was done in heaven : faith must be reposed in the writer. It was an nounced to Jove, " Some one has arrived, of good stature, very
I don't know what he is threatening, for he incessantly shakes his head and drags his right foot. I have asked him his nationality, and he answered — I can't tell what, with a confused sound and a mumbling voice.
I don't under stand his language ; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor any known tongue. "
gray-haired.
I must
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
29
Then Jupiter orders Hercules, because he had wandered over the whole globe and seemed to have known all nations, to go and investigate what people he is of. Hercules at first sight of him is certainly disturbed, though he would not have feared even Junonian monsters. As he observed a face of a new type, an unwonted gait, the voice of no terrestrial animal, but (such as is usual with marine beasts) one hoarse and confused, he thought he had come to his thirteenth labor. Carefully stud ied, it is seen to be a man. He advanced, therefore, and said in Greek, as easiest to him, Tfc nroOev eh avSp&v, iroQi rol ttto- Xt? ; [What kind of a man are you, where is your city? ] Claudius, hearing this, rejoices that there are linguistic scholars here : he hopes there will be some place for his histories. So, signifying himself in a Homeric line to be Caesar, he says : —
'IXtoOcv /it <f>epu>ovtjiios KiKOvtacri iriXxura-tv. 5
[The winds, bearing me from Ilion, drove me upon the Ciconians. ]
There was also following a truer line, equally Homeric : —
TZvOa S* lytov ttoXiv tirpaOov, <3A«ra 8' avrous.
[At Ismarus, there I destroyed the city and slew the people. ]
And he would have imposed the tale on Hercules with very little risk had not Fever been there, who, leaving his fane behind, had come with him alone ; all the other gods he had left at Rome. " That man," said he, " is telling pure lies. I, who have lived with him so many years, say this to you : He was born at Lyons. You see one of Munatius' citizens ; as I am telling you, he was born at the sixteenth stone from Vienne, a native Gaul. So, as befitted a Gaul to do, he seized Rome. I turn over to you this native of Lyons, where Licinius reigned so many years. You indeed, who have trodden more places than any regular mule-driver, ought to know the Lyon- nese, and that many thousands exist between the Xanthus 6 and the Rhone. "
Claudius grows very hot at this point, and rumbles with all possible rage. What he was trying to say, no one could under stand. But he ordered Fever to be led off to execution by a gesture of his trembling hands, which however were firm enough for this one act, he was so used to decapitating men. He had ordered that one's neck lopped off. You would think they were all his freedmen, so little did anybody mind him.
Then Hercules : " Hear me, you," quoth he, " and stop playing fool : you have come here, where mice gnaw iron. 7
30 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Tell me the truth quickly, lest I strip you of your frills. " And that he might be more terrifying, he grew tragic, and saith he : —
" Haste and express what stock thy name reveals, Lest stricken with this club thou fall'st to earth : This staff hath oft demolished savage kings.
What sounds with hesitant utterance makest thou ? What land, what tribe produced that unfixed head, Expound. Sooth, while I sought the far-off realms Of the triple king, whence from the Western Sea To Inachus' town I bore the noble herd,
I saw a mountain bordering rivers twain,
Which Phoebus aye sees to the sunrise turned ;
Where mighty Rhone with rapid current flows,
And Arar [Saone], doubting where to urge his course, With quiet stream in silence laves his banks : "
Is not that land thy spirit's spring and nurse ?
This spiritedly and boldly enough. Nevertheless, he is not quite easy in his mind, and fears fiwpov irX^iy^v [a fool's blow]. Claudius, as he saw the valiant man, forgot his frivolity, and recognized that while there had been no one in Rome like him self, here he was not to have the same grace : every cock [Gaul] is first on his own dunghill. So, as far as he could be understood, he was observed to say this : —
"I have hoped that you, Hercules, bravest of the gods, would be with me in the presence of others : and if any one had asked me for a sponsor, I should have named you, who have known me best. For if you recall to memory, I was the one who was laying down law for you before your temple every day in the months of July and August. You know what mis eries I underwent there, when I heard pleaders both day and night ; of whom if you had happened to be one, mightily strong though you may seem, you would have preferred cleansing the sewers of Augeas. "
[Gap in Ms. here. Bouillet conjectures the argument to run thus : When Hercules has sufiered himself to be persuaded by Claudius, and favor him by voting for his admission into the number of the gods, he at once rashly bursts into their conclave with him, to commend his cause to them. But they, feeling the affair an indignity, inveigh bit terly against Hercules, and wrangle with him and each other in a tumultuous and disorderly fashion. Some unknown god speaks first and then another breaks in. ]
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 31
" No wonder you have forced an entrance into the curia ;
for nothing is closed to you. Now tell us what sort of god
you wish him to be. 'Eirt/eovpeto? ®eo? [an Epicurean god] he
cannot be, — ovre outos repaypa eyei, ovre aXXot; irapexei6 [one
who has no troubles himself and brings none to others]. Stoic?
how can he be round [complete], as Varro saith, without head
and without tail There something of Stoic god in him,
though, for he has neither heart nor head. " "Good Lord
Even he had asked this recommendation from Saturn, whose
month he celebrated every year while prince, he would not
have obtained that godhood from Jupiter, whom so far as in
him lay he condemned of incest. 9 For he slew L. Silanus, his
son-in-law. 10 ask, what for? his sister, the most enjoying
girl in Rome, whom everybody called Venus, he preferred to
call Juno. 11 Why, quoth he, for want to know, why foolishly
be so zealous over his sister? At Athens half one allowed,
at Alexandria full one. Because at Rome, quoth he, mice
lick meal, this man straightens our curves. 12 What he may do
in his chamber, know not he criticises even the quarters of
heaven, he wishes to become god. It not enough that he
has temple in Britain, where the barbarians worship him and
pray to him as a god, pxopov <fiv\aTT€iv p. rjvw [to ward off fool's
wrath]. "
At last enters Jove's mind to pass judgment on private
persons lingering within the curia, and to have no quarrels. "I had permitted you, Conscript Fathers," saith he, "to ask questions, but you have made mere country fair. wish you to preserve the discipline of the curia. Whatever kind of man this is, what will he think of us "
He being sent out, first Father Janus asked his judg ment he was designated in the Julian Kalends Afternoon Consul ;18 man sly enough, who always sees afia irpoaau) koX oirio-ffG)1* [at once before and after]. He spoke fluently — because he lives in the Forum —much that the stenographer could not follow, and so do not relate nor may put into other words what was spoken by him. He talked much of the greatness of the gods this honor ought not to be given to the crowd. " Formerly," quoth he, " was great thing to be made god; now you have made of very slight repute. That may not seem to give judgment on the person rather than the matter, my opinion is, that after to-day, no one should be made a god from those who apovprj<i Kapwbv eSovaiv16
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; a
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? ,2 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
[shall eat the fruit of the country], or from those whom £ie:'8<B/>o? apovpa 15 [the fruitful country] maintains. Whoever, contrary to this Senate decree, is made, fabricated, or depicted a god, to be given to the ghosts, his first function to be among the new gladiators, to flog them with whips. "
Next is asked for his judgment, Diespiter, son of Vica Pota,16 and himself designated Money-changer Consul. He lived by this trade, and was wont to sell franchiselets. 17 To him Hercules politely came up and touched his ear ; so he gives judgment in these words : —
" Since Holy Claudius is akin to Holy Augustus in blood, nor less to Holy Augusta, his grandmother, whom he himself has ordered to be a goddess, and far surpasses all mortals in wisdom, and there must be some one from the republic who can, like Romulus, " ferventia rapa vorare " 18 [devour smoking turnips], I judge that Holy Claudius from this day be a god, just as whoever before him was made with the best right ; and that the subject be added to Ovid's fierafioptpwaeK [Meta morphoses]. " There were various judgments, and Claudius seemed to conquer in the decision. For Hercules, who saw his sword in the fire,19 ran hither and thither and said : "Don't do me an ill service — my all is at stake : in return I will do whatever you wish, one after another ; one hand washes the other. "
Then Holy Augustus rose to speak in his turn, and dis coursed with the greatest eloquence. "Conscript Fathers, I have your witness that from the time I was made a god I have not uttered a word. I always mind my own business. But I cannot dissimulate longer, and hold back grief which shame makes heavier. For this have I begotten peace on land and sea? to this end have I curbed civil war? to this end have I based the city on laws, adorned it with works ? And what to say, Conscript Fathers, I cannot find ; all words are below my indignation. I must take refuge in the sentence of that most sagacious man, Messala Corvinus : He has destroyed the justice of the Empire ! This man, Conscript Fathers, who seems to us not able to stir up a fly, slew men as easily as a dog 20 falls. But what can I say of so many acts of justice ? a There is no time to deplore public slaughters in contemplating domestic calamities, so I will omit the former and allude to the latter. Even if he does not know these things, I know h> rv^omav [one happening] : he does not
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 33
know himself among the gods. He whom you see, hiding under my name for so many years, has repaid me with these thanks : he has slain my two great-granddaughters Julia, one by the sword and one by starvation ; one great-great- grandson, L. Silanus.
"You can see, Jupiter, whether I am speaking in a bad cause ; certainly in yours. If this man is to be among us — tell me, Holy Claudius, why every one of those you slew, you condemned before you knew about the case, before you heard it ? Is it customary to do this ? It is not done in heaven. Behold Jupiter, who is reigning so many years; he merely broke the leg of Vulcan, whom
'Piif/e iroSbs reraytov <tiro BiyXov Ocottc&ioio,*1
[Seizing his foot, he hurled from the threshold divine,]
because he was angry with his wife, and hung him up : whom did he ever kill ? You killed Messalina, of whom I was great- uncle equally with being yours. 'I don't know,' you say? May the gods curse you ; for that is viler, that you don't know, than that you killed her. He has not left off following the dead Caius Caesar [Caligula]. The latter slew her father-in- law : the former his son-in-law. Caius Caesar forbade the son of Crassus to be called the Great : this man restored the name to him, but took away his head. He killed in one house Cras sus the Great, Serbonia, Tristionia, Assario, though nobles ; — Crassus, it is true, such a fool that he might have been em peror.
" Think, Conscript Fathers, what a portent that he should desire to be received into the number of the gods ! Do you wish now to make this thing a god ? See his body, born under angry gods. At most he can say three words speedily, [' This is mine,'] and lead me off a slave. Who will worship this god ? Who will believe in him ? When you come at last to making such gods, no one will believe you are gods yourselves. Most of all, Conscript Fathers, if I have acted becomingly among you, if I have answered no one harshly, avenge my injuries. I adjudge this for my decision. " And he thus recited from the tablet : —
" Since Holy Claudius slew his father-in-law, Appius Sila nus, two sons-in-law, Pompeius Magnus and L. Silanus, the father-in-law of his daughter, Crassus Frugi, a man as like
vol. nr. —3
84 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
himself as egg to egg ; Scribonia, his daughter's mother-in-law, Messalina, his wife ; and the rest of whom he could not tell the number : it is my pleasure that he be severely censured, and not given a dispensation for judicial business ; and should be forthwith carried away, and leave heaven within thirty days, Olympus within three. "
This sentence was agreed upon. Without delay, Cyllenius [Mercury] drags him with a neck-twist to the shades,
Illuc unde regant redire quemquain.
[The bourne from whence no traveller returns. ]
While they descend through the sacred way, what does that concourse of men desire for itself, now Claudius has had his funeral? And it was the most beautiful of all and full of costly preparations, as you know a god is proclaimed, — flute, horn, and such a throng, such a gathering of every class of sena tors, that even Claudius could hear it. All joyful, hilarious, the Roman people walked about as if free. Agatho and a few pet tifoggers mourned, and clearly from the heart. Jurisconsults came out of the shadows, pale, thin, scarce having life, as if they had revived with the greatest difficulty. One of these, when he had seen the pettifoggers putting their heads together and deploring their fortunes, came up and said, " I told you the Saturnalia would not last forever. " Claudius, as he saw his funeral, understood that he was dead. For with great p. eya\rj- yop(a [pomposity] the dirges are sung : —
Pour ye out weeping, Send ye forth wailing, Fabricate mourning ; Sadly resoundeth
The Forum with clamor : Dead in his beauty
The sapient man
Than whom no other
On the whole planet Stouter existed.
He could the fleet ones Down in the race course Speedily conquer
He could demolish The Parthian rebels,
;
is,
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Follow those faithless ones Armed with their light darts, While he sure-handed
Drew up the bowstring ;
He could the foemen Rushing against him
Fix with a slight wound, Likewise the Medes' backs Painted and flying.
He too the Britons Living beyond the known Shores of the ocean,
With the blue-shielded Tribe of Brigantes,
Forced to surrender Necks to the Roman Fetters, and Ocean's Very self tremble
Over the new laws
Made for Rome's safety.
Weep for the hero,
Than whom no other
Could with more swiftness Cases decide on,
Not having listened
Save but to one side,
Often to neither.
Who will as judge now Listen to cases
All the long year through ? You he shall yield to, Leaving his high seat,
You who a silent
People give laws to, Holding a hundred Towns of the Cretans. Beat on your bosoms, O pettifoggers,
Genus of hirelings. Bards, do you also Mourn at this sad news; You too the chiefest, Who had made ready For winning great lucre Shaking the dice-box.
36 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Claudius was delighted with his praises, and wished to gaze longer. The Talthybius of the gods [Mercury] took his hand and dragged him along with head turned, lest some one should recognize him, through the Campus Martius ; and between Tiber and the covered way he descended to the shades. The freedman Narcissus had gone before by a shorter road to inter cept his patron ; and runs up to him on his arrival, shining as if just out of the bath, and says, "What have the gods sent to men? " " Go quickly," said Mercury, " and announce our com ing. " But he wished to fawn on his patron longer; when Mercury again ordered him to hasten, and shortened his linger ing with a rod. No sooner done than Narcissus flies. Every thing is favorable ; he descends easily. 24 So, gouty as he was, he arrived at the door of Dis, where Cerberus — or, as Horace says, "the hundred-headed beast"26 — lay, moving about and shaking his rough shag. He was a little disturbed (he was used to having a white dog for his pleasure) on seeing him to be a shaggy black dog, evidently one you would not wish to have come at you in the dark. And in a loud voice, he says, "Claudius Caesar comes. " Behold, at once they came forth, clapping their hands and singing : —
[We have found him, we rejoice with him ! ] *
Here was C. Silius, consul designate, Juncus Praetorius, Sex. Trallus, M. Helvius, Trogus Cotta, Vectius Valens, Fabius, — Roman knights whom Narcissus had ordered to be executed. In the midst of this crowd of singers was Mnester the panto- mimist, whom Claudius on account of his beauty had made a head short. Nor was the rumor slow in spreading to Messalina that Claudius had come. First of all, the freedmen flock together, — Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, and Phero- nactes, all whom, that he might not be unprovided anywhere, he had sent ahead. Then the two prefects, Justus Catonius and Rufus son of Pompeius. Then his friends, Saturnius Luscius, and Pedo Pompeius, and Lupus, and Celer Asinius, consulars. Last came a brother's daughter, a sister's daughter, son-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, all full kin by blood. And the train being formed, they rush to Claudius. When Claudius saw them, he exclaimed, " Tldvra <j>(\a>v irX^prj ! [All full of friends! ] How did you come here? " Then Pedo Pompeius : " What are you saying, you cruelest of men ? Do
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
37
you ask, How? Why, who else sent us here but you, the
He leads him to the tribune of jEacus ; the latter under the Cornelian law asked what was established concerning assassins, he demands that his name be taken, he announces the record : Senators slain, 30 ; Roman knights, 315 and more ; other citi zens, oaa -^-aimOo'i re «ow? Te [as the sand on the seashore]. Claudius, greatly terrified, cast his eyes around everywhere ; he searches for some patron who can defend him. Advocate he finds none. Finally, P. Petronius comes forward — his old con vive, a man fluent in the Claudian tongue [stutterer], and de mands the advocacy. It is not granted. Pedo Pompeius makes accusation with a great clamor. Petronius begins to intend to answer. vEacus, an exceedingly just man, forbids. With the other side so far unheard he condemns Claudius, and says : —
EtKC irdOoi ra k </>c£e,SCkt) k Weia yevotro.
[Let him suffer the evils he dealt, that justice and right may exist. ]
There was a great silence. All were stupefied, astounded by the novelty of the thing ; they said this had never been done. To Claudius it seemed more iniquitous than novel. What sort of punishment he ought to undergo was long debated. There were those who said that if they must create a burden for one god, Tantalus would perish with thirst unless help was brought to him ; Sisyphus could never lift his load ; some time or other poor Ixion's wheel ought to be stopped. It was resolved, how ever, not to give a discharge to any of these veterans, lest Claudius
might some time hope for the same. It seemed best that a new penalty should be devised, to institute a fruitless labor for him, and an image of his desires without end or accomplishment. Then ^acus orders him to gamble with a dice-box minus a bot tom. And now he has begun to chase the flying dice and to effect nothing.
For however oft he endeavored to throw from the resonant dice-box, Both dice fled from pursuit and escaped through the bottom removed ; And when he adventured to cast once more with the squares re
collected,
Still to be mocked in like manner, and always in quest of illusion, Cheating his trust ; he flies after, and once again, right through his
fingers,
Slips the deceitful tessara, filled with perpetual craft
murderer of all your friends ? We must be in a court ; show you the judges' chair. "
I will
38 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Thus whenever attained are the peaks of the loftiest mountains, Fruitless the ponderous burden rolls back upon Sisyphus' neck.
Suddenly Caius Caesar appeared, and began to claim him as a slave; he produces witnesses who saw Claudius writhing under whips, rods, buffets, from himself. He was adjudged to Caesar ; Macus gives him over.
