Such was Rome; such were the
blessings
she taught men to enjoy.
Lucian
For a time
the deserted one was wroth, with clenched fists and grinding teeth;
but at last she stiffened, like another Niobe, into marble. A strange
fate, but I must request your belief; dreams are great magicians, are
they not?
Then the other looked upon me and spoke:--'For this justice done me,'
said she, 'you shall now be recompensed; come, mount this car'--and
lo, one stood ready, drawn by winged steeds like Pegasus--, 'that you
may learn what fair sights another choice would have cost you. ' We
mounted, she took the reins and drove, and I was carried aloft and
beheld towns and nations and peoples from the East to the West; and
methought I was sowing like Triptolemus; but the nature of the seed I
cannot call to mind--only this, that men on earth when they saw it
gave praise, and all whom I reached in my flight sent me on my way
with blessings.
When she had presented these things to my eyes, and me to my admirers,
she brought me back, no more clad as when my flight began; I returned,
methought, in glorious raiment. And finding my father where he stood
waiting, she showed him my raiment, and the guise in which I came, and
said a word to him upon the lot which they had come so near appointing
for me. All this I saw when scarce out of my childhood; the confusion
and terror of the stick, it may be, stamped it on my memory.
'Good gracious,' says some one, before I have done, 'what a longwinded
lawyer's vision! ' 'This,' interrupts another, 'must be a winter dream,
to judge by the length of night required; or perhaps it took three
nights, like the making of Heracles. What has come over him, that he
babbles such puerilities? memorable things indeed, a child in bed, and
a very ancient, worn-out dream! what stale frigid stuff! does he take
us for interpreters of dreams? ' Sir, I do not. When Xenophon related
that vision of his which you all know, of his father's house on fire
and the rest, was it just by way of a riddle? was it in deliberate
ineptitude that he reproduced it? a likely thing in their desperate
military situation, with the enemy surrounding them! no, the relation
was to serve a useful purpose.
Similarly I have had an object in telling you my dream. It is that the
young may be guided to the better way and set themselves to Culture,
especially any among them who is recreant for fear of poverty, and
minded to enter the wrong path, to the ruin of a nature not all
ignoble. Such an one will be strengthened by my tale, I am well
assured; in me he will find an apt example; let him only compare the
boy of those days, who started in pursuit of the best and devoted
himself to Culture regardless of immediate poverty, with the man who
has now come back to you, as high in fame, to put it at the lowest, as
any stonecutter of them all.
H.
A LITERARY PROMETHEUS
So you will have me a Prometheus? If your meaning is, my good sir,
that my works, like his, are of clay, I accept the comparison and hail
my prototype; potter me to your heart's content, though _my_ clay is
poor common stuff, trampled by common feet till it is little better
than mud. But perhaps it is in exaggerated compliment to my ingenuity
that you father my books upon the subtlest of the Titans; in that case
I fear men will find a hidden meaning, and detect an Attic curl on
your laudatory lips. Where do you find my ingenuity? in what consists
the great subtlety, the Prometheanism, of my writings? enough for me
if you have not found them sheer earth, all unworthy of Caucasian
clay-pits. How much better a claim to kinship with Prometheus have you
gentlemen who win fame in the courts, engaged in real contests; _your_
works have true life and breath, ay, and the warmth of fire. That is
Promethean indeed, though with the difference, it may be, that you do
not work in clay; your creations are oftenest of gold; we
on the other hand who come before popular audiences and offer mere
lectures are exhibitors of imitations only. However, I have the
general resemblance to Prometheus, as I said before--a resemblance
which I share with the dollmakers--, that my modelling is in clay; but
then there is no motion, as with him, not a sign of life;
entertainment and pastime is the beginning and the end of my work. So
I must look for light elsewhere; possibly the title is a sort of
_lucus a non lucendo_, applied to me as to Cleon in the comedy:
Full well Prometheus-Cleon plans--the past.
Or again, the Athenians used to call Prometheuses the makers of jars
and stoves and other, clay-workers, with playful reference to the
material, and perhaps to the use of fire in baking the ware. If that
is all your 'Prometheus' means, you have aimed your shaft well enough,
and flavoured your jest with the right Attic tartness; my productions
are as brittle as their pottery; fling a stone, and you may smash them
all to pieces.
But here some one offers me a crumb of comfort: 'That was not the
likeness he found between you and Prometheus; he meant to commend your
innovating originality: at a time when human beings did not exist,
Prometheus conceived and fashioned them; he moulded and elaborated
certain living things into agility and beauty; he was practically
their creator, though Athene assisted by putting breath into the clay
and bringing the models to life. ' So says my some one, giving your
remark its politest possible turn. Perhaps he has hit the true
meaning; not that I can rest content, however, with the mere credit of
innovation, and the absence of any original to which my work can be
referred; if it is not good as well as original, I assure you I shall
be ashamed of it, bring down my foot and crush it out of existence;
its novelty shall not avail (with me at least) to save its ugliness
from annihilation. If I thought otherwise, I admit that a round dozen
of vultures would be none too many for the liver of a dunce who could
not see that ugliness was only aggravated by strangeness.
Ptolemy, son of Lagus, imported two novelties into Egypt; one was a
pure black Bactrian camel, the other a piebald man, half absolutely
black and half unusually white, the two colours evenly distributed; he
invited the Egyptians to the theatre, and concluded a varied show with
these two, expecting to bring down the house. The audience, however,
was terrified by the camel and almost stampeded; still, it _was_
decked all over with gold, had purple housings and a richly jewelled
bridle, the spoil of Darius' or Cambyses' treasury, if not of Cyrus'
own. As for the man, a few laughed at him, but most shrank as from a
monster. Ptolemy realized that the show was a failure, and the
Egyptians proof against mere novelty, preferring harmony and beauty.
So he withdrew and ceased to prize them; the camel died forgotten, and
the parti-coloured man became the reward of Thespis the fluteplayer
for a successful after-dinner performance.
I am afraid my work is a camel in Egypt, and men's admiration limited
to the bridle and purple housings; as to combinations, though the
components may be of the most beautiful (as Comedy and Dialogue in the
present case), that will not ensure a good effect, unless the mixture
is harmonious and well-proportioned; it is possible that the resultant
of two beauties may be bizarre. The readiest instance to hand is the
centaur: not a lovely creature, you will admit, but a savage, if the
paintings of its drunken bouts and murders go for anything. Well, but
on the other hand is it not possible for two such components to result
in beauty, as the combination of wine and honey in superlative
sweetness? That is my belief; but I am not prepared to maintain that
_my_ components have that property; I fear the mixture may only
have obscured their separate beauties.
For one thing, there was no great original connexion or friendship
between Dialogue and Comedy; the former was a stay-at-home, spending
his time in solitude, or at most taking a stroll with a few intimates;
whereas Comedy put herself in the hands of Dionysus, haunted the
theatre, frolicked in company, laughed and mocked and tripped it to
the flute when she saw good; nay, she would mount her anapaests, as
likely as not, and pelt the friends of Dialogue with nicknames--
doctrinaires, airy metaphysicians, and the like. The thing she loved
of all else was to chaff them and drench them in holiday impertinence,
exhibit them treading on air and arguing with the clouds, or measuring
the jump of a flea, as a type of their ethereal refinements. But
Dialogue continued his deep speculations upon Nature and Virtue, till,
as the musicians say, the interval between them was two full octaves,
from the highest to the lowest note. This ill-assorted pair it is that
we have dared to unite and harmonize--reluctant and ill--disposed for
reconciliation.
And here comes in the apprehension of yet another Promethean analogy:
have I confounded male and female, and incurred the penalty? Or no--
when will resemblances end? --have I, rather, cheated my hearers by
serving them up bones wrapped in fat, comic laughter in philosophic
solemnity? As for stealing--for Prometheus is the thief's patron too--
I defy you there; that is the one fault you cannot find with me: from
whom should I have stolen? if any one has dealt before me in such
forced unions and hybrids, I have never made his acquaintance. But
after all, what am I to do? I have made my bed, and I must lie in it;
Epimetheus may change his mind, but Prometheus, never.
H.
NIGRINUS
[Lucian to Nigrinus. Health.
There is a proverb about carrying 'owls to Athens'--an absurd
undertaking, considering the excellent supply already on the spot. Had
it been my intention, in presenting Nigrinus with a volume of my
composition, to indulge him of all people with a display of literary
skill, I should indeed have been an arrant 'owl-fancier in Athens. ' As
however my object is merely to communicate to you my present
sentiments, and the profound impression produced upon me by your
eloquence, I may fairly plead Not Guilty, even to the charge of
Thucydides, that 'Men are bold from ignorance, where mature
consideration would render them cautious. ' For I need not say that
devotion to my subject is partly responsible for my present hardihood;
it is not _all_ the work of ignorance. Farewell. ]
NIGRINUS
A DIALOGUE
_Lucian. A Friend_
_Fr_. What a haughty and dignified Lucian returns to us from his
journey! He will not vouchsafe us a glance; he stands aloof, and will
hold no further communion with us. Altogether a supercilious Lucian!
The change is sudden. Might one inquire the cause of this altered
demeanour?
_Luc_. 'Tis the work of Fortune.
_Fr_. Of Fortune!
_Luc_. As an incidental result of my journey, you see in me a happy
man; 'thrice-blest,' as the tragedians have it.
_Fr_. Dear me. What, in this short time?
_Luc_. Even so.
_Fr_. But what does it all mean? What is the secret of your elation? I
decline to rejoice with you in this abridged fashion; I must have
details. Tell me all about it.
_Luc_. What should you think, if I told you that I had exchanged
servitude for freedom; poverty for true wealth; folly and presumption
for good sense?
_Fr_. Extraordinary! But I am not quite clear of your meaning yet.
_Luc_. Why, I went off to Rome to see an oculist--my eyes had been
getting worse--
_Fr_. Yes, I know about that. I have been hoping that you would light
on a good man.
_Luc_. Well, I got up early one morning with the intention of paying a
long-deferred visit to Nigrinus, the Platonic philosopher. On reaching
his house, I knocked, and was duly announced and admitted to his
presence. I found him with a book in his hand, surrounded by various
statues of the ancient philosophers. Before him lay a tablet, with
geometrical figures described on it, and a globe of reeds, designed
apparently to represent the universe. He greeted me cordially, and
asked after my welfare. I satisfied his inquiries, and demanded, in my
turn, how he did, and whether he had decided on another trip to
Greece. Once on that subject, he gave free expression to his
sentiments; and, I assure you, 'twas a veritable feast of ambrosia to
me. The spells of the Sirens (if ever there were Sirens), of the
Pindaric 'Charmers,' of the Homeric lotus, are things to be forgotten,
after his truly divine eloquence. Led on by his theme, he spoke the
praises of philosophy, and of the freedom which philosophy confers;
and expressed his contempt for the vulgar error which sets a value
upon wealth and renown and dominion and power, upon gold and purple,
and all that dazzles the eyes of the world,--and once attracted my
own! I listened with rapt attention, and with a swelling heart. At the
time, I knew not what had come over me; my feelings were
indescribable. My dearest idols, riches and renown, lay shattered; one
moment I was ready to shed bitter tears over the disillusionment, the
next, I could have laughed for scorn of these very things, and was
exulting in my escape from the murky atmosphere of my past life into
the brightness of the upper air. The result was curious: I forgot all
about my ophthalmic troubles, in the gradual improvement of my
spiritual vision; for till that day I had grovelled in spiritual
blindness. Little by little I came into the condition with which you
were twitting me just now. Nigrinus's words have raised in me a joyous
exaltation of spirit which precludes every meaner thought. Philosophy
seems to have produced the same effect on me as wine is said to have
produced on the Indians the first time they drank it. The mere taste
of such potent liquor threw them into a state of absolute frenzy, the
intoxicating power of the wine being doubled in men so warm-blooded by
nature. This is my case. I go about like one possessed; I am drunk
with the words of wisdom.
_Fr_. This is not drunkenness, but sobriety and temperance. But I
should like to hear what Nigrinus actually said, if that may be. It is
only right that you should take that trouble for me; I am your friend,
and share your interests.
_Luc_. Enough! You urge a willing steed. I was about to bespeak your
attention. You must be my witness to the world, that there is reason
in my madness. Indeed, apart from this, the work of recollection is a
pleasure, and has become a constant practice with me; twice, thrice in
a day I repeat over his words, though there is none to hear. A lover,
in the absence of his mistress, remembers some word, some act of hers,
dwells on it, and beguiles hours of sickness with her feigned
presence. Sometimes he thinks he is face to face with her; words,
heard long since, come again from her lips; he rejoices; his soul
cleaves to the memory of the past, and has no time for present
vexations. It is so with me. Philosophy is far away, but I have heard
a philosopher's words. I piece them together, and revolve them in my
heart, and am comforted. Nigrinus is the beacon-fire on which, far out
in mid-ocean, in the darkness of night, I fix my gaze; I fancy him
present with me in all my doings; I hear ever the same words. At
times, in moments of concentration, I see his very face, his voice
rings in my ears. Of him it may truly be said, as of Pericles,
In every heart he left his sting.
_Fr_. Stay, gentle enthusiast. Take a good breath, and start again; I
am waiting to hear what Nigrinus said. You beat about the bush in a
manner truly exasperating.
_Luc_. True, I must make a start, as you say. And yet. . . Tell me, did
you never see a tragedy (nay, the comedies fare no better) murdered by
bad acting, and the culprits finally hissed off the stage for their
pains? As often as not the play is a perfectly good one, and has
scored a success.
_Fr_. I know the sort of thing; and what about it?
_Luc_. I am afraid that before I have done you will find that I make
as sad work of it as they do,--jumbling things together pell-mell,
spoiling the whole point sometimes by inadequate expression; and you
will end by damning the play instead of the actor. I could put up with
my own share of the disgrace; but it would vex me indeed, that my
subject should be involved in my downfall; I cannot have _it_
discredited for my shortcomings. Remember, then: whatever the
imperfections in my speech, the author is not to be called to account;
he sits far aloof from the stage, and knows nothing of what is going
forward. The memory of the actor is all that you are invited to
criticize; I am neither more nor less than the 'Messenger' in a
tragedy. At each flaw in the argument, be this your first thought,
that the author probably said something quite different, and much more
to the point;--and then you may hiss me off if you will.
_Fr_. Bless me; here is quite a professional exordium! You are about
to add, I think, that 'your consultation with your client has been but
brief'; that you 'come into court imperfectly instructed'; that 'it
were to be desired that your client were here to plead his own cause;
as it is, you are reduced to such a meagre and inadequate statement of
the case, as memory will supply. ' Am I right? Well then, spare
yourself the trouble, as far as I am concerned. Imagine all these
preliminaries settled. I stand prepared to applaud: but if you keep me
waiting, I shall harbour resentment all through the case, and hiss you
accordingly.
_Luc_. I should, indeed, have been glad to avail myself of the
arguments you mention, and of others too. I might have said, that mine
would be no set speech, no orderly statement such as that I heard;
that is wholly beyond me. Nor can I speak in the person of Nigrinus.
There again I should be like a bad actor, taking the part of
Agamemnon, or Creon, or Heracles' self; he is arrayed in cloth of
gold, and looks very formidable, and his mouth opens tremendously
wide; and what comes out of it? A little, shrill, womanish pipe of a
voice that would disgrace Polyxena or Hecuba! I for my part have no
intention of exposing myself in a mask several sizes too large for me,
or of wearing a robe to which I cannot do credit. Rather than play the
hero's part, and involve him in my discomfiture, I will speak in my
own person.
_Fr_. Will the man never have done with his masks and his stages?
_Luc_. Nay, that is all. And now to my subject. Nigrinus's first words
were in praise of Greece, and in particular of the Athenians. They are
brought up, he said, to poverty and to philosophy. The endeavours,
whether of foreigners or of their own countrymen, to introduce luxury
into their midst, find no favour with them. When a man comes among
them with this view, they quietly set about to correct his tendency,
and by gentle degrees to bring him to a better course of life. He
mentioned the case of a wealthy man who arrived at Athens in all the
vulgar pomp of retinue and gold and gorgeous raiment, expecting that
every eye would be turned upon him in envy of his lot; instead of
which, they heartily pitied the poor worm, and proceeded to take his
education in hand. Not an ill-natured word, not an attempt at direct
interference: it was a free city; he was at liberty to live in it as
he thought fit. But when he made a public nuisance of himself in the
baths or gymnasiums, crowding in with his attendants, and taking up
all the room, someone would whisper, in a sly aside, as if the words
were not meant to reach his ears: 'He is afraid he will never come out
from here alive; yet all is peace; there is no need of such an army. '
The remark would be overheard, and would have its educational effect.
They soon eased him of his embroidery and purple, by playful allusions
to flower and colour. 'Spring is early. '--'How did that peacock get
here? '--'His mother must have lent him that shawl,'--and so on. The
same with the rest, his rings, his elaborate coiffure, and his table
excesses. Little by little he came to his senses, and left Athens very
much the better for the public education he had received.
Nor do they scruple to confess their poverty. He mentioned a sentence
which he heard pronounced unanimously by the assembled people at the
Panathenaic festival. A citizen had been arrested and brought before
the Steward for making his appearance in coloured clothes. The
onlookers felt for him, and took his part; and when the herald
declared that he had violated the law by attending the festival in
that attire, they all exclaimed with one voice, as if they had been in
consultation, 'that he must be pardoned for wearing those clothes, as
he had no others. '
He further commended the Athenian liberty, and unpretentious style of
living; the peace and learned leisure which they so abundantly enjoy.
To dwell among such men, he declared, is to dwell with philosophy; a
single-hearted man, who has been taught to despise wealth, may here
preserve a pure morality; no life could be more in harmony with the
determined pursuit of all that is truly beautiful. But the man over
whom gold has cast its spell, who is in love with riches, and measures
happiness by purple raiment and dominion, who, living his life among
flatterers and slaves, knows not the sweets of freedom, the blessings
of candour, the beauty of truth; he who has given up his soul to
Pleasure, and will serve no other mistress, whose heart is set on
gluttony and wine and women, on whose tongue are deceit and hypocrisy;
he again whose ears must be tickled with lascivious songs, and the
voluptuous notes of flute and lyre;--let all such (he cried) dwell
here in Rome; the life will suit them. Our streets and market-places
are filled with the things they love best. They may take in pleasure
through every aperture, through eye and ear, nostril and palate; nor
are the claims of Aphrodite forgotten. The turbid stream surges
everlastingly through our streets; avarice, perjury, adultery,--all
tastes are represented. Under that rush of waters, modesty, virtue,
uprightness, are torn from the soul; and in their stead grows the tree
of perpetual thirst, whose flowers are many strange desires.
Such was Rome; such were the blessings she taught men to enjoy. 'As
for me,' he continued, 'on returning from my first voyage to Greece, I
stopped short a little way from the city, and called myself to
account, in the words of Homer, for my return.
Ah, wretch! and leav'st thou then the light of day--
the joyous freedom of Greece,
And wouldst behold--
the turmoil of Rome? slander and insolence and gluttony, flatterers
and false friends, legacy-hunters and murderers? And what wilt thou do
here? thou canst not endure these things, neither canst thou escape
them! Thus reasoning, I withdrew myself out of range, as Zeus did
Hector,
Far from the scene of slaughter, blood and strife,
and resolved henceforth to keep my house. I lead the life you see--a
spiritless, womanish life, most men would account it--holding converse
with Philosophy, with Plato, with Truth. From my high seat in this
vast theatre, I look down on the scene beneath me; a scene calculated
to afford much entertainment; calculated also to try a man's
resolution to the utmost. For, to give evil its due, believe me, there
is no better school for virtue, no truer test of moral strength, than
life in this same city of Rome. It is no easy thing, to withstand so
many temptations, so many allurements and distractions of sight and
sound. There is no help for it: like Odysseus, we must sail past them
all; and there must be no binding of hands, no stopping of our ears
with wax; that would be but sorry courage: our ears must hear, our
hands must be free,--and our contempt must be genuine. Well may that
man conceive an admiration of philosophy, who is a spectator of so
much folly; well may he despise the gifts of Fortune, who views this
stage, and its multitudinous actors. The slave grows to be master, the
rich man is poor, the pauper becomes a prince, a king; and one is His
Majesty's friend, and another is his enemy, and a third he banishes.
And here is the strangest thing of all: the affairs of mankind are
confessedly the playthings of Fortune, they have no pretence to
security; yet, with instances of this daily before their eyes, men
will reach after wealth and power;--not one of them but carries his
load of hopes unrealized.
'But I said that there was entertainment also to be derived from the
scene; and I will maintain it. Our rich men are an entertainment in
themselves, with their purple and their rings always in evidence, and
their thousand vulgarities. The latest development is the _salutation
by proxy_; [Footnote: The _spoken_ salutation being performed by a
servant. ] they favour us with a glance, and that must be happiness
enough. By the more ambitious spirits, an obeisance is expected; this
is not performed at a distance, after the Persian fashion--you go
right up, and make a profound bow, testifying with the angle of your
body to the self-abasement of your soul; you then kiss his hand or
breast--and happy and enviable is he who may do so much! And there
stands the great man, protracting the illusion as long as may be. (I
heartily acquiesce, by the way, in the churlish sentence which
excludes us from a nearer acquaintance with their _lips_. )
'But if these men are amusing, their courtiers and flatterers are
doubly so. They rise in the small hours of the night, to go their
round of the city, to have doors slammed in their faces by slaves, to
swallow as best they may the compliments of "Dog," "Toadeater," and
the like. And the guerdon of their painful circumambulations? A
vulgarly magnificent dinner, the source of many woes! They eat too
much, they drink more than they want, they talk more than they should;
and then they go away, angry and disappointed, grumbling at their
fare, and protesting against the scant courtesy shown them by their
insolent patron. You may see them vomiting in every alley, squabbling
at every brothel. The daylight most of them spend in bed, furnishing
employment for the doctors. Most of them, I say; for with some it has
come to this, that they actually have no time to be ill. My own
opinion is that, of the two parties, the toadies are more to blame,
and have only themselves to thank for their patron's insolence. What
can they expect him to think, after their commendations of his wealth,
their panegyrics on money, their early attendance at his doors, their
servile salutations? If by common consent they would abstain, were it
only for a few days, from this voluntary servitude, the tables must
surely be turned, and the rich come to the doors of the paupers,
imploring them not to leave such blessedness as theirs without a
witness, their fine houses and elegant furniture lying idle for want
of some one to use them. Not wealth, but the envy that waits on
wealth, is the object of their desire. The truth is, gold and ivory
and noble mansions are of little avail to their owner, if there is no
one to admire them. If we would break the power of the rich, and bring
down their pretensions, we must raise up within their borders a
stronghold of Indifference. As it is, their vanity is fostered by the
court that is paid to them. In ordinary men, who have no pretence to
education, this conduct, no doubt, is less to be blamed. But that men
who call themselves philosophers should actually outdo the rest in
degradation,--this, indeed, is the climax. Imagine my feelings, when I
see a brother philosopher, an old man, perhaps, mingling in the herd
of sycophants; dancing attendance on some great man; adapting himself
to the conversational level of a possible host! One thing, indeed,
serves to distinguish him from his company, and to accentuate his
disgrace;--he wears the garb of philosophy. It is much to be regretted
that actors of uniform excellence in other respects will not dress
conformably to their part. For in the achievements of the table, what
toadeater besides can be compared with them? There is an artlessness
in their manner of stuffing themselves, a frankness in their tippling,
which defy competition; they sponge with more spirit than other men,
and sit on with greater persistency. It is not an uncommon thing for
the more courtly sages to oblige the company with a song. '
All this he treated as a jest. But he had much to say on the subject
of those paid philosophers, who hawk about virtue like any other
marketable commodity. 'Hucksters' and 'petty traders' were his words
for them. A man who proposes to teach the contempt of wealth, should
begin (he maintained) by showing a soul above fees. And certainly he
has always acted on this principle himself. He is not content with
giving his services gratis to all comers, but lends a helping hand to
all who are in difficulties, and shows an absolute disregard for
riches. So far is he from grasping at other men's goods, that he could
anticipate without concern the deterioration of his own property. He
possessed an estate at no great distance from the city, on which for
many years he had never even set foot. Nay, he disclaimed all right of
property in it; meaning, I suppose, that we have no natural claim to
such things; law, and the rights of inheritance, give us the use of
them for an indefinite period, and for that time we are styled
'owners'; presently our term lapses, and another succeeds to the
enjoyment of a name.
There are other points in which he sets an admirable example to the
serious followers of philosophy: his frugal life, his systematic
habits of bodily exercise, his modest bearing, his simplicity of
dress, but above all, gentle manners and a constant mind. He urges his
followers not to postpone the pursuit of good, as so many do, who
allow themselves a period of grace till the next great festival, after
which they propose to eschew deceit and lead a righteous life; there
must be no shilly-shallying, when virtue is the goal for which we
start. On the other hand, there are philosophers whose idea of
inculcating virtue in their youthful disciples is to subject them to
various tests of physical endurance; whose favourite prescription is
the strait waistcoat, varied with flagellations, or the enlightened
process of scarification. Of these Nigrinus evidently had no opinion.
According to him, our first care should be to inure the _soul_ to
pain and hardship; he who aspired to educate men aright must reckon
with soul as well as body, with the age of his pupils, and with their
previous training; he would then escape the palpable blunder of
overtasking them. Many a one (he affirmed) had succumbed under the
unreasonable strain put upon him; and I met with an instance myself,
of a man who had tasted the hardships of those schools, but no sooner
heard the words of true wisdom, than he fled incontinently to
Nigrinus, and was manifestly the better for the change.
Leaving the philosophers to themselves, he reverted to more general
subjects: the din and bustle of the city, the theatres, the
race-course, the statues of charioteers, the nomenclature of horses,
the horse-talk in every side-street. The rage for horses has become a
positive epidemic; many persons are infected with it whom one would
have credited with more sense.
Then the scene changed to the pomp and circumstance attendant upon
funerals and testamentary dispositions. 'Only once in his life' (he
observed) 'does your thoroughbred Roman say what he means; and then,'
meaning, in his will, 'it comes too late for him to enjoy the credit
of it. ' I could not help laughing when he told me how they thought it
necessary to carry their follies with them to the grave, and to leave
the record of their inanity behind them in black and white; some
stipulating that their clothes or other treasures should be burnt with
them, others that their graves should be watched by particular
servants, or their monuments crowned with flowers;--sapient end to a
life of sapience! 'Of their doings in this world,' said he, 'you may
form some idea from their injunctions with reference to the next.
These are they who will pay a long price for an entree; whose floors
are sprinkled with wine and saffron and spices; who in midwinter
smother themselves in roses, ay, for roses are scarce, and out of
season, and altogether desirable; but let a thing come in its due
course, and oh, 'tis vile, 'tis contemptible. These are they whose
drink is of costly essences. ' He had no mercy on them here. 'Very
bunglers in sensuality, who know not her laws, and confound her
ordinances, flinging down their souls to be trampled beneath the heels
of luxury! As the play has it, Door or window, all is one to them.
Such pleasures are rank solecism. ' One observation of his in the same
spirit fairly caps the famous censure of Momus. Momus found fault with
the divine artificer for not putting his bull's horns in front of the
eyes. Similarly, Nigrinus complained that when these men crown
themselves in their banquets, they put the garlands in the wrong
place; if they are so fond of the smell of violets and roses, they
should tie on their garlands as close as may be under their nostrils;
they could then snuff up the smell to their hearts' content.
Proceeding to the gentlemen who make such a serious work of their
dinner, he was exceedingly merry over their painful elaborations of
sauce and seasoning. 'Here again,' he cried, 'these men are sore put
to it, to procure the most fleeting of enjoyments. Grant them four
inches of palate apiece--'tis the utmost we can allow any man--and I
will prove to you that they have four inches of gratification for
their trouble. Thus: there is no satisfaction to be got out of the
costliest viands before consumption; and after it a full stomach is
none the better for the price it has cost to fill it. _Ergo_, the
money is paid for the pleasure snatched _in transitu_. But what are we
to expect? These men are too grossly ignorant to discern those truer
pleasures with which Philosophy rewards our resolute endeavours. '
The Baths proved a fertile topic, what with the insolence of the
masters and the jostlings of their men;--'they will not stand without
the support of a slave; it is much that they retain enough vitality to
get away on their own legs at all. ' One practice which obtains in the
streets and Baths of Rome seemed to arouse his particular resentment.
Slaves have to walk on ahead of their masters, and call out to them to
'look to their feet,' whenever there is a hole or a lump in their way;
it has come to this, that men must be _reminded that they are
walking_. 'It is too much,' he cried; 'these men can get through their
dinner with the help of their own teeth and fingers; they can hear
with their own ears: yet they must have other men's eyes to see for
them! They are in possession of all their faculties: yet they are
content to be spoken to in language which should only be addressed to
poor maimed wretches! And this goes on in broad daylight, in our
public places; and among the sufferers are men who are responsible for
the welfare of cities! '
This he said, and much more to the same effect. At length he was
silent. All the time I had listened in awestruck attention, dreading
the moment when he should cease. And when it was all over, my
condition was like that of the Phaeacians. For a long time I gazed
upon him, spellbound; then I was seized with a violent attack of
giddiness; I was bathed in perspiration, and when I attempted to
speak, I broke down; my voice failed, my tongue stammered, and at last
I was reduced to tears. Mine was no surface wound from a random shaft.
The words had sunk deep into a vital part; had come with true aim, and
cleft my soul asunder. For (if I may venture to philosophize on my own
account) I conceive the case thus:-A well-conditioned human soul is
like a target of some soft material. As life goes on, many archers
take aim thereat; and every man's quiver is full of subtle and varied
arguments, but not every man shoots aright. Some draw the bow too
tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction,
but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them
right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a
gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows
are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as
often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to
earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; there
can be no deep wound, where the archer lacks strength. But a good
marksman, a Nigrinus, begins with a careful examination of the mark,
in case it should be particularly soft,--or again too hard; for there
are marks which will take no impression from an arrow. Satisfied on
this point, he dips his shaft, not in the poisons of Scythia or Crete,
but in a certain ointment of his own, which is sweet in flavour and
gentle in operation; then, without more ado, he lets fly. The shaft
speeds with well-judged swiftness, cleaves the mark right through, and
remains lodged in it; and the drug works its way through every part.
Thus it is that men hear his words with mingled joy and grief; and
this was my own case, while the drug was gently diffusing itself
through my soul. Hence I was moved to apostrophize him in the words of
Homer:
So aim; and thou shalt bring (to some) salvation.
For as it is not every man that is maddened by the sound of the
Phrygian flute, but only those who are inspired of Cybele, and by
those strains are recalled to their frenzy,--so too not every man who
hears the words of the philosophers will go away possessed, and
stricken at heart, but only those in whose nature is something akin to
philosophy.
_Fr_. These are fearful and wonderful words; nay, they are divine. All
that you said of ambrosia and lotus is true; I little knew how
sumptuous had been your feast. I have listened to you with strange
emotion, and now that you have ceased, I feel oppressed, nay, in your
own language, 'sore stricken. ' This need not surprise you. A person
who has been bitten by a mad dog not only goes mad himself, you know,
but communicates his madness to any one whom he bites whilst he is in
that state, so that the infection may be carried on by this means
through a long succession of persons.
_Luc_. Ah, then you confess to a tenderness?
_Fr_. I do; and beg that you will think upon some medicine for both
our wounded breasts.
_Luc_. We must take a hint from Telephus.
_Fr_. What is that?
_Luc_. We want a hair of the dog that bit us.
F.
TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS
Archon, Aristarchus of Phalerum. Seventh Pyanepsion. Court of the
Seven Vowels. Action for assault with robbery. Sigma _v_. Tau.
Plaintiff's case--that the words in-pp-are wrongfully withheld from
him.
Vowels of the jury. --For some time this Mr. Tau's trespasses and
encroachments on my property were of minor importance; I made no claim
for damages, and affected unconsciousness of what I heard; my
conciliatory temper both you and the other letters have reason to
know. His covetousness and folly, however, have now so puffed him up,
that he is no longer content with my habitual concessions, but insists
on more; I accordingly find myself compelled to get the matter settled
by you who know both sides of it. The fact is, I am in bodily fear,
owing to the crushing to which I am subjected. This evergrowing
aggression will end by ousting me completely from my own; I shall be
almost dumb, lose my rank as a letter, and be degraded to a mere
noise.
Justice requires then that not merely you, the jury in this case, but
the other letters also, should be on your guard against such attempts.
If any one who chooses is to be licensed to leave his own place and
usurp that of others, with no objection on your part (whose
concurrence is an indispensable condition of all writing), I fail to
see how combinations are to have their ancient constitutional rights
secured to them. But my first reliance is upon you, who will surely
never be guilty of the negligence and indifference which permits
injustice; and even if you decline the contest, I have no intention of
sitting down under that injustice myself.
It is much to be regretted that the assaults of other letters were not
repelled when they first began their lawless practices; then we should
not be watching the still pending dispute between Lambda and Rho for
possession of _kephalalgia_ or _kephalargia_, _kishlis_ or _kishris_:
Gamma would not have had to defend its rights over _gyaphalla_,
constantly almost at blows with Kappa in the debatable land, and _per
contra_ it would itself have dropped its campaign against Lambda (if
indeed it is more dignified than petty larceny) for converting _molis_
to _mogis_: in fact lawless confusion generally would have been nipped
in the bud. And it is well to abide by the established order; such
trespasses betray a revolutionary spirit.
Now our first legislators--Cadmus the islander, Palamedes, son of
Nauplius, or Simonides, whom some authorities credit with the
measure--were not satisfied with determining merely our order of
precedence in the alphabet; they also had an eye to our individual
qualities and faculties. You, Vowels of the jury, constitute the first
Estate, because you can be uttered independently; the semi-vowels,
requiring support before they can be distinctly heard, are the second;
and the lowest Estate they declared to consist of those nine which
cannot be sounded at all by themselves. The vowels are accordingly the
natural guardians of our laws.
But this--this Tau--I would give him a worse designation, but that is
a manifest impossibility; for without the assistance of two good
presentable members of your Estate, Alpha and Upsilon, he would be a
mere nonentity--he it is that has dared to outdo all injuries that I
have ever known, expelling me from the nouns and verbs of my
inheritance, and hunting me out of my conjunctions and prepositions,
till his rapacity has become quite unbearable. I am now to trace
proceedings from the beginning.
I was once staying at Cybelus, a pleasant little town, said to be an
Athenian colony; my travelling companion was the excellent Rho, best
of neighbours. My host was a writer of comedies, called Lysimachus; he
seems to have been a Boeotian by descent, though he represented
himself as coming from the interior of Attica. It was while with him
that I first detected Tau's depredations [Footnote: For the probably
corrupt passage Section 7 fin. --Section 8 init. I accept Dindorf's
rearrangement as follows: mechr men gar oligois epecheirei,
tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de taemeron kai ta homoia epispomenon,
sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti legein, kai oiston aen moi to akousma
kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep autois. 8. hupote d ek touton arxamenon
etolmaese kattiteron eipein kai kattuma kai pittan, eita aperuthriasan
kai basilitgan onomazein, aposteroun me ton suggegenaemenun moi kai
suntethrammenun grammatun, ou metrius ipi toutois aganaktu. ]. For some
earlier occasional attempts (as when he took to tettaroakonta for
tessarakonta, taemeron for saemeron, with little pilferings of that
sort) I had explained as a trick and peculiarity of pronunciation; I
had tolerated the sound without letting it annoy me seriously.
But impunity emboldened him; kassiteros became kattiteros, kassuma and
pissa shared its fate; and then he cast off all shame and assaulted
basigissa. I found myself losing the society in which I had been born
and bred [Footnote: For the probably corrupt passage Section 7 fin. --
Section 8 init. I accept Dindorf's rearrangement as follows: _mechr
men gar oligois epecheirei, tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de
taemeron kai ta homoia epispomenon, sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti
legein, kai oiston aen moi to akousma kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep
autois_. 8. _hupote d ek touton arxamenon etolmaese kattiteron eipein
kai kattuma kai pittan, eita aperuthriasan kai basilitgan onomazein,
aposteroun me ton suggegenaemenun moi kai suntethrammenun grammatun,
ou metrius ipi toutois aganaktu. </i]; at such a time equanimity is out
of place; I am tortured with apprehension; how long will it be before
_suka_ is _tuka_? Bear with me, I beseech you; I despair and have none
to help me; do I not well to be angry? It is no petty everyday peril,
this threatened separation from my long-tried familiars. My _kissa_,
my talking bird that nestled in my breast, he has torn away and named
anew; my _phassa_, my _nhssai_, my _khossuphoi_--all gone; and I had
Aristarchus's own word that they were mine; half my _melissai_ he has
lured to strange hives; Attica itself he has invaded, and wrongfully
annexed its Hymettus (as he calls it); and you and the rest looked on
at the seizure.
But why dwell on such trifles? I am driven from all Thessaly
(Thettaly, forsooth! ), _thalassa_ is now _mare clausum_ to me; he will
not leave me a poor garden-herb like _seutlion_, I have never a
_passalos_ to hang myself upon. What a long-suffering letter I am
myself, your own knowledge is witness enough. When Zeta stole my
_smaragdos_, and robbed me of all Smyrna, I never took proceedings
against him; Xi might break all _sunthhkai_, and appeal to Thucydides
(who ought to know) as xympathizing with his xystem; I let them alone.
My neighbour Rho I made no difficulty about pardoning as an invalid,
when he transplanted my _mursinai_ into his garden, or, in a fit of
the spleen, took liberties with my _khopsh_. So much for my temper.
Tau's, on the other hand, is naturally violent; its manifestations are
not confined to me. In proof that he has not spared other letters, but
assaulted Delta, Theta, Zeta, and almost the whole alphabet, I wish
his various victims to be put in the box. Now, Vowels of the jury,
mark the evidence of Delta:--'He robbed me of _endelecheia_, which he
claimed, quite illegally, as _entelecheia_. ' Mark Theta beating his
breast and plucking out his hair in grief for the loss of
_kolokunthh_. And Zeta mourns for _surizein_ and _salpizein_--nay,
_cannot_ mourn, for lack of his gryzein. What tolerance is possible,
what penalty adequate, for this criminal letter's iniquities?
But his wrongs are not even limited to us, his own species; he has now
extended his operations to mankind, as I shall show. He does not
permit their tongues to work straight. (But that mention of mankind
calls me back for a moment, reminding me how he turns glossa into
glotta, half robbing me of the tongue itself. Ay, you are a disease of
the tongue in every sense, Tau. ) But I return from that digression, to
plead the cause of mankind and its wrongs. The prisoner's designs
include the constraint, racking, and mutilation of their utterance. A
man sees a beautiful thing, and wishes to describe it as kalon, but in
comes Tau, and forces the man to say talon _he_ must have precedence
everywhere, of course. Another man has something to say about a vine,
and lo, before it is out, it is metamorphosed by this miserable
creature into misery; he has changed slaema to tlaema, with a
suggestive hint of tlaemon. And, not content with middle-class
victims, he aims at the Persian king himself, the one for whom land
and sea are said to have made way and changed their nature: Cyrus
comes out at his bidding as Tyrus.
Such are his verbal offences against man; his offences in deed remain.
Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for
introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body
that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they
set up the erections on which men are crucified. Stayros the vile
engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all
these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths?
For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape
--that shape which he gave to the gibbet named Stayros after him by
men.
H.
TIMON THE MISANTHROPE
_Timon. Zeus. Hermes. Plutus. Poverty. Gnathonides.
the deserted one was wroth, with clenched fists and grinding teeth;
but at last she stiffened, like another Niobe, into marble. A strange
fate, but I must request your belief; dreams are great magicians, are
they not?
Then the other looked upon me and spoke:--'For this justice done me,'
said she, 'you shall now be recompensed; come, mount this car'--and
lo, one stood ready, drawn by winged steeds like Pegasus--, 'that you
may learn what fair sights another choice would have cost you. ' We
mounted, she took the reins and drove, and I was carried aloft and
beheld towns and nations and peoples from the East to the West; and
methought I was sowing like Triptolemus; but the nature of the seed I
cannot call to mind--only this, that men on earth when they saw it
gave praise, and all whom I reached in my flight sent me on my way
with blessings.
When she had presented these things to my eyes, and me to my admirers,
she brought me back, no more clad as when my flight began; I returned,
methought, in glorious raiment. And finding my father where he stood
waiting, she showed him my raiment, and the guise in which I came, and
said a word to him upon the lot which they had come so near appointing
for me. All this I saw when scarce out of my childhood; the confusion
and terror of the stick, it may be, stamped it on my memory.
'Good gracious,' says some one, before I have done, 'what a longwinded
lawyer's vision! ' 'This,' interrupts another, 'must be a winter dream,
to judge by the length of night required; or perhaps it took three
nights, like the making of Heracles. What has come over him, that he
babbles such puerilities? memorable things indeed, a child in bed, and
a very ancient, worn-out dream! what stale frigid stuff! does he take
us for interpreters of dreams? ' Sir, I do not. When Xenophon related
that vision of his which you all know, of his father's house on fire
and the rest, was it just by way of a riddle? was it in deliberate
ineptitude that he reproduced it? a likely thing in their desperate
military situation, with the enemy surrounding them! no, the relation
was to serve a useful purpose.
Similarly I have had an object in telling you my dream. It is that the
young may be guided to the better way and set themselves to Culture,
especially any among them who is recreant for fear of poverty, and
minded to enter the wrong path, to the ruin of a nature not all
ignoble. Such an one will be strengthened by my tale, I am well
assured; in me he will find an apt example; let him only compare the
boy of those days, who started in pursuit of the best and devoted
himself to Culture regardless of immediate poverty, with the man who
has now come back to you, as high in fame, to put it at the lowest, as
any stonecutter of them all.
H.
A LITERARY PROMETHEUS
So you will have me a Prometheus? If your meaning is, my good sir,
that my works, like his, are of clay, I accept the comparison and hail
my prototype; potter me to your heart's content, though _my_ clay is
poor common stuff, trampled by common feet till it is little better
than mud. But perhaps it is in exaggerated compliment to my ingenuity
that you father my books upon the subtlest of the Titans; in that case
I fear men will find a hidden meaning, and detect an Attic curl on
your laudatory lips. Where do you find my ingenuity? in what consists
the great subtlety, the Prometheanism, of my writings? enough for me
if you have not found them sheer earth, all unworthy of Caucasian
clay-pits. How much better a claim to kinship with Prometheus have you
gentlemen who win fame in the courts, engaged in real contests; _your_
works have true life and breath, ay, and the warmth of fire. That is
Promethean indeed, though with the difference, it may be, that you do
not work in clay; your creations are oftenest of gold; we
on the other hand who come before popular audiences and offer mere
lectures are exhibitors of imitations only. However, I have the
general resemblance to Prometheus, as I said before--a resemblance
which I share with the dollmakers--, that my modelling is in clay; but
then there is no motion, as with him, not a sign of life;
entertainment and pastime is the beginning and the end of my work. So
I must look for light elsewhere; possibly the title is a sort of
_lucus a non lucendo_, applied to me as to Cleon in the comedy:
Full well Prometheus-Cleon plans--the past.
Or again, the Athenians used to call Prometheuses the makers of jars
and stoves and other, clay-workers, with playful reference to the
material, and perhaps to the use of fire in baking the ware. If that
is all your 'Prometheus' means, you have aimed your shaft well enough,
and flavoured your jest with the right Attic tartness; my productions
are as brittle as their pottery; fling a stone, and you may smash them
all to pieces.
But here some one offers me a crumb of comfort: 'That was not the
likeness he found between you and Prometheus; he meant to commend your
innovating originality: at a time when human beings did not exist,
Prometheus conceived and fashioned them; he moulded and elaborated
certain living things into agility and beauty; he was practically
their creator, though Athene assisted by putting breath into the clay
and bringing the models to life. ' So says my some one, giving your
remark its politest possible turn. Perhaps he has hit the true
meaning; not that I can rest content, however, with the mere credit of
innovation, and the absence of any original to which my work can be
referred; if it is not good as well as original, I assure you I shall
be ashamed of it, bring down my foot and crush it out of existence;
its novelty shall not avail (with me at least) to save its ugliness
from annihilation. If I thought otherwise, I admit that a round dozen
of vultures would be none too many for the liver of a dunce who could
not see that ugliness was only aggravated by strangeness.
Ptolemy, son of Lagus, imported two novelties into Egypt; one was a
pure black Bactrian camel, the other a piebald man, half absolutely
black and half unusually white, the two colours evenly distributed; he
invited the Egyptians to the theatre, and concluded a varied show with
these two, expecting to bring down the house. The audience, however,
was terrified by the camel and almost stampeded; still, it _was_
decked all over with gold, had purple housings and a richly jewelled
bridle, the spoil of Darius' or Cambyses' treasury, if not of Cyrus'
own. As for the man, a few laughed at him, but most shrank as from a
monster. Ptolemy realized that the show was a failure, and the
Egyptians proof against mere novelty, preferring harmony and beauty.
So he withdrew and ceased to prize them; the camel died forgotten, and
the parti-coloured man became the reward of Thespis the fluteplayer
for a successful after-dinner performance.
I am afraid my work is a camel in Egypt, and men's admiration limited
to the bridle and purple housings; as to combinations, though the
components may be of the most beautiful (as Comedy and Dialogue in the
present case), that will not ensure a good effect, unless the mixture
is harmonious and well-proportioned; it is possible that the resultant
of two beauties may be bizarre. The readiest instance to hand is the
centaur: not a lovely creature, you will admit, but a savage, if the
paintings of its drunken bouts and murders go for anything. Well, but
on the other hand is it not possible for two such components to result
in beauty, as the combination of wine and honey in superlative
sweetness? That is my belief; but I am not prepared to maintain that
_my_ components have that property; I fear the mixture may only
have obscured their separate beauties.
For one thing, there was no great original connexion or friendship
between Dialogue and Comedy; the former was a stay-at-home, spending
his time in solitude, or at most taking a stroll with a few intimates;
whereas Comedy put herself in the hands of Dionysus, haunted the
theatre, frolicked in company, laughed and mocked and tripped it to
the flute when she saw good; nay, she would mount her anapaests, as
likely as not, and pelt the friends of Dialogue with nicknames--
doctrinaires, airy metaphysicians, and the like. The thing she loved
of all else was to chaff them and drench them in holiday impertinence,
exhibit them treading on air and arguing with the clouds, or measuring
the jump of a flea, as a type of their ethereal refinements. But
Dialogue continued his deep speculations upon Nature and Virtue, till,
as the musicians say, the interval between them was two full octaves,
from the highest to the lowest note. This ill-assorted pair it is that
we have dared to unite and harmonize--reluctant and ill--disposed for
reconciliation.
And here comes in the apprehension of yet another Promethean analogy:
have I confounded male and female, and incurred the penalty? Or no--
when will resemblances end? --have I, rather, cheated my hearers by
serving them up bones wrapped in fat, comic laughter in philosophic
solemnity? As for stealing--for Prometheus is the thief's patron too--
I defy you there; that is the one fault you cannot find with me: from
whom should I have stolen? if any one has dealt before me in such
forced unions and hybrids, I have never made his acquaintance. But
after all, what am I to do? I have made my bed, and I must lie in it;
Epimetheus may change his mind, but Prometheus, never.
H.
NIGRINUS
[Lucian to Nigrinus. Health.
There is a proverb about carrying 'owls to Athens'--an absurd
undertaking, considering the excellent supply already on the spot. Had
it been my intention, in presenting Nigrinus with a volume of my
composition, to indulge him of all people with a display of literary
skill, I should indeed have been an arrant 'owl-fancier in Athens. ' As
however my object is merely to communicate to you my present
sentiments, and the profound impression produced upon me by your
eloquence, I may fairly plead Not Guilty, even to the charge of
Thucydides, that 'Men are bold from ignorance, where mature
consideration would render them cautious. ' For I need not say that
devotion to my subject is partly responsible for my present hardihood;
it is not _all_ the work of ignorance. Farewell. ]
NIGRINUS
A DIALOGUE
_Lucian. A Friend_
_Fr_. What a haughty and dignified Lucian returns to us from his
journey! He will not vouchsafe us a glance; he stands aloof, and will
hold no further communion with us. Altogether a supercilious Lucian!
The change is sudden. Might one inquire the cause of this altered
demeanour?
_Luc_. 'Tis the work of Fortune.
_Fr_. Of Fortune!
_Luc_. As an incidental result of my journey, you see in me a happy
man; 'thrice-blest,' as the tragedians have it.
_Fr_. Dear me. What, in this short time?
_Luc_. Even so.
_Fr_. But what does it all mean? What is the secret of your elation? I
decline to rejoice with you in this abridged fashion; I must have
details. Tell me all about it.
_Luc_. What should you think, if I told you that I had exchanged
servitude for freedom; poverty for true wealth; folly and presumption
for good sense?
_Fr_. Extraordinary! But I am not quite clear of your meaning yet.
_Luc_. Why, I went off to Rome to see an oculist--my eyes had been
getting worse--
_Fr_. Yes, I know about that. I have been hoping that you would light
on a good man.
_Luc_. Well, I got up early one morning with the intention of paying a
long-deferred visit to Nigrinus, the Platonic philosopher. On reaching
his house, I knocked, and was duly announced and admitted to his
presence. I found him with a book in his hand, surrounded by various
statues of the ancient philosophers. Before him lay a tablet, with
geometrical figures described on it, and a globe of reeds, designed
apparently to represent the universe. He greeted me cordially, and
asked after my welfare. I satisfied his inquiries, and demanded, in my
turn, how he did, and whether he had decided on another trip to
Greece. Once on that subject, he gave free expression to his
sentiments; and, I assure you, 'twas a veritable feast of ambrosia to
me. The spells of the Sirens (if ever there were Sirens), of the
Pindaric 'Charmers,' of the Homeric lotus, are things to be forgotten,
after his truly divine eloquence. Led on by his theme, he spoke the
praises of philosophy, and of the freedom which philosophy confers;
and expressed his contempt for the vulgar error which sets a value
upon wealth and renown and dominion and power, upon gold and purple,
and all that dazzles the eyes of the world,--and once attracted my
own! I listened with rapt attention, and with a swelling heart. At the
time, I knew not what had come over me; my feelings were
indescribable. My dearest idols, riches and renown, lay shattered; one
moment I was ready to shed bitter tears over the disillusionment, the
next, I could have laughed for scorn of these very things, and was
exulting in my escape from the murky atmosphere of my past life into
the brightness of the upper air. The result was curious: I forgot all
about my ophthalmic troubles, in the gradual improvement of my
spiritual vision; for till that day I had grovelled in spiritual
blindness. Little by little I came into the condition with which you
were twitting me just now. Nigrinus's words have raised in me a joyous
exaltation of spirit which precludes every meaner thought. Philosophy
seems to have produced the same effect on me as wine is said to have
produced on the Indians the first time they drank it. The mere taste
of such potent liquor threw them into a state of absolute frenzy, the
intoxicating power of the wine being doubled in men so warm-blooded by
nature. This is my case. I go about like one possessed; I am drunk
with the words of wisdom.
_Fr_. This is not drunkenness, but sobriety and temperance. But I
should like to hear what Nigrinus actually said, if that may be. It is
only right that you should take that trouble for me; I am your friend,
and share your interests.
_Luc_. Enough! You urge a willing steed. I was about to bespeak your
attention. You must be my witness to the world, that there is reason
in my madness. Indeed, apart from this, the work of recollection is a
pleasure, and has become a constant practice with me; twice, thrice in
a day I repeat over his words, though there is none to hear. A lover,
in the absence of his mistress, remembers some word, some act of hers,
dwells on it, and beguiles hours of sickness with her feigned
presence. Sometimes he thinks he is face to face with her; words,
heard long since, come again from her lips; he rejoices; his soul
cleaves to the memory of the past, and has no time for present
vexations. It is so with me. Philosophy is far away, but I have heard
a philosopher's words. I piece them together, and revolve them in my
heart, and am comforted. Nigrinus is the beacon-fire on which, far out
in mid-ocean, in the darkness of night, I fix my gaze; I fancy him
present with me in all my doings; I hear ever the same words. At
times, in moments of concentration, I see his very face, his voice
rings in my ears. Of him it may truly be said, as of Pericles,
In every heart he left his sting.
_Fr_. Stay, gentle enthusiast. Take a good breath, and start again; I
am waiting to hear what Nigrinus said. You beat about the bush in a
manner truly exasperating.
_Luc_. True, I must make a start, as you say. And yet. . . Tell me, did
you never see a tragedy (nay, the comedies fare no better) murdered by
bad acting, and the culprits finally hissed off the stage for their
pains? As often as not the play is a perfectly good one, and has
scored a success.
_Fr_. I know the sort of thing; and what about it?
_Luc_. I am afraid that before I have done you will find that I make
as sad work of it as they do,--jumbling things together pell-mell,
spoiling the whole point sometimes by inadequate expression; and you
will end by damning the play instead of the actor. I could put up with
my own share of the disgrace; but it would vex me indeed, that my
subject should be involved in my downfall; I cannot have _it_
discredited for my shortcomings. Remember, then: whatever the
imperfections in my speech, the author is not to be called to account;
he sits far aloof from the stage, and knows nothing of what is going
forward. The memory of the actor is all that you are invited to
criticize; I am neither more nor less than the 'Messenger' in a
tragedy. At each flaw in the argument, be this your first thought,
that the author probably said something quite different, and much more
to the point;--and then you may hiss me off if you will.
_Fr_. Bless me; here is quite a professional exordium! You are about
to add, I think, that 'your consultation with your client has been but
brief'; that you 'come into court imperfectly instructed'; that 'it
were to be desired that your client were here to plead his own cause;
as it is, you are reduced to such a meagre and inadequate statement of
the case, as memory will supply. ' Am I right? Well then, spare
yourself the trouble, as far as I am concerned. Imagine all these
preliminaries settled. I stand prepared to applaud: but if you keep me
waiting, I shall harbour resentment all through the case, and hiss you
accordingly.
_Luc_. I should, indeed, have been glad to avail myself of the
arguments you mention, and of others too. I might have said, that mine
would be no set speech, no orderly statement such as that I heard;
that is wholly beyond me. Nor can I speak in the person of Nigrinus.
There again I should be like a bad actor, taking the part of
Agamemnon, or Creon, or Heracles' self; he is arrayed in cloth of
gold, and looks very formidable, and his mouth opens tremendously
wide; and what comes out of it? A little, shrill, womanish pipe of a
voice that would disgrace Polyxena or Hecuba! I for my part have no
intention of exposing myself in a mask several sizes too large for me,
or of wearing a robe to which I cannot do credit. Rather than play the
hero's part, and involve him in my discomfiture, I will speak in my
own person.
_Fr_. Will the man never have done with his masks and his stages?
_Luc_. Nay, that is all. And now to my subject. Nigrinus's first words
were in praise of Greece, and in particular of the Athenians. They are
brought up, he said, to poverty and to philosophy. The endeavours,
whether of foreigners or of their own countrymen, to introduce luxury
into their midst, find no favour with them. When a man comes among
them with this view, they quietly set about to correct his tendency,
and by gentle degrees to bring him to a better course of life. He
mentioned the case of a wealthy man who arrived at Athens in all the
vulgar pomp of retinue and gold and gorgeous raiment, expecting that
every eye would be turned upon him in envy of his lot; instead of
which, they heartily pitied the poor worm, and proceeded to take his
education in hand. Not an ill-natured word, not an attempt at direct
interference: it was a free city; he was at liberty to live in it as
he thought fit. But when he made a public nuisance of himself in the
baths or gymnasiums, crowding in with his attendants, and taking up
all the room, someone would whisper, in a sly aside, as if the words
were not meant to reach his ears: 'He is afraid he will never come out
from here alive; yet all is peace; there is no need of such an army. '
The remark would be overheard, and would have its educational effect.
They soon eased him of his embroidery and purple, by playful allusions
to flower and colour. 'Spring is early. '--'How did that peacock get
here? '--'His mother must have lent him that shawl,'--and so on. The
same with the rest, his rings, his elaborate coiffure, and his table
excesses. Little by little he came to his senses, and left Athens very
much the better for the public education he had received.
Nor do they scruple to confess their poverty. He mentioned a sentence
which he heard pronounced unanimously by the assembled people at the
Panathenaic festival. A citizen had been arrested and brought before
the Steward for making his appearance in coloured clothes. The
onlookers felt for him, and took his part; and when the herald
declared that he had violated the law by attending the festival in
that attire, they all exclaimed with one voice, as if they had been in
consultation, 'that he must be pardoned for wearing those clothes, as
he had no others. '
He further commended the Athenian liberty, and unpretentious style of
living; the peace and learned leisure which they so abundantly enjoy.
To dwell among such men, he declared, is to dwell with philosophy; a
single-hearted man, who has been taught to despise wealth, may here
preserve a pure morality; no life could be more in harmony with the
determined pursuit of all that is truly beautiful. But the man over
whom gold has cast its spell, who is in love with riches, and measures
happiness by purple raiment and dominion, who, living his life among
flatterers and slaves, knows not the sweets of freedom, the blessings
of candour, the beauty of truth; he who has given up his soul to
Pleasure, and will serve no other mistress, whose heart is set on
gluttony and wine and women, on whose tongue are deceit and hypocrisy;
he again whose ears must be tickled with lascivious songs, and the
voluptuous notes of flute and lyre;--let all such (he cried) dwell
here in Rome; the life will suit them. Our streets and market-places
are filled with the things they love best. They may take in pleasure
through every aperture, through eye and ear, nostril and palate; nor
are the claims of Aphrodite forgotten. The turbid stream surges
everlastingly through our streets; avarice, perjury, adultery,--all
tastes are represented. Under that rush of waters, modesty, virtue,
uprightness, are torn from the soul; and in their stead grows the tree
of perpetual thirst, whose flowers are many strange desires.
Such was Rome; such were the blessings she taught men to enjoy. 'As
for me,' he continued, 'on returning from my first voyage to Greece, I
stopped short a little way from the city, and called myself to
account, in the words of Homer, for my return.
Ah, wretch! and leav'st thou then the light of day--
the joyous freedom of Greece,
And wouldst behold--
the turmoil of Rome? slander and insolence and gluttony, flatterers
and false friends, legacy-hunters and murderers? And what wilt thou do
here? thou canst not endure these things, neither canst thou escape
them! Thus reasoning, I withdrew myself out of range, as Zeus did
Hector,
Far from the scene of slaughter, blood and strife,
and resolved henceforth to keep my house. I lead the life you see--a
spiritless, womanish life, most men would account it--holding converse
with Philosophy, with Plato, with Truth. From my high seat in this
vast theatre, I look down on the scene beneath me; a scene calculated
to afford much entertainment; calculated also to try a man's
resolution to the utmost. For, to give evil its due, believe me, there
is no better school for virtue, no truer test of moral strength, than
life in this same city of Rome. It is no easy thing, to withstand so
many temptations, so many allurements and distractions of sight and
sound. There is no help for it: like Odysseus, we must sail past them
all; and there must be no binding of hands, no stopping of our ears
with wax; that would be but sorry courage: our ears must hear, our
hands must be free,--and our contempt must be genuine. Well may that
man conceive an admiration of philosophy, who is a spectator of so
much folly; well may he despise the gifts of Fortune, who views this
stage, and its multitudinous actors. The slave grows to be master, the
rich man is poor, the pauper becomes a prince, a king; and one is His
Majesty's friend, and another is his enemy, and a third he banishes.
And here is the strangest thing of all: the affairs of mankind are
confessedly the playthings of Fortune, they have no pretence to
security; yet, with instances of this daily before their eyes, men
will reach after wealth and power;--not one of them but carries his
load of hopes unrealized.
'But I said that there was entertainment also to be derived from the
scene; and I will maintain it. Our rich men are an entertainment in
themselves, with their purple and their rings always in evidence, and
their thousand vulgarities. The latest development is the _salutation
by proxy_; [Footnote: The _spoken_ salutation being performed by a
servant. ] they favour us with a glance, and that must be happiness
enough. By the more ambitious spirits, an obeisance is expected; this
is not performed at a distance, after the Persian fashion--you go
right up, and make a profound bow, testifying with the angle of your
body to the self-abasement of your soul; you then kiss his hand or
breast--and happy and enviable is he who may do so much! And there
stands the great man, protracting the illusion as long as may be. (I
heartily acquiesce, by the way, in the churlish sentence which
excludes us from a nearer acquaintance with their _lips_. )
'But if these men are amusing, their courtiers and flatterers are
doubly so. They rise in the small hours of the night, to go their
round of the city, to have doors slammed in their faces by slaves, to
swallow as best they may the compliments of "Dog," "Toadeater," and
the like. And the guerdon of their painful circumambulations? A
vulgarly magnificent dinner, the source of many woes! They eat too
much, they drink more than they want, they talk more than they should;
and then they go away, angry and disappointed, grumbling at their
fare, and protesting against the scant courtesy shown them by their
insolent patron. You may see them vomiting in every alley, squabbling
at every brothel. The daylight most of them spend in bed, furnishing
employment for the doctors. Most of them, I say; for with some it has
come to this, that they actually have no time to be ill. My own
opinion is that, of the two parties, the toadies are more to blame,
and have only themselves to thank for their patron's insolence. What
can they expect him to think, after their commendations of his wealth,
their panegyrics on money, their early attendance at his doors, their
servile salutations? If by common consent they would abstain, were it
only for a few days, from this voluntary servitude, the tables must
surely be turned, and the rich come to the doors of the paupers,
imploring them not to leave such blessedness as theirs without a
witness, their fine houses and elegant furniture lying idle for want
of some one to use them. Not wealth, but the envy that waits on
wealth, is the object of their desire. The truth is, gold and ivory
and noble mansions are of little avail to their owner, if there is no
one to admire them. If we would break the power of the rich, and bring
down their pretensions, we must raise up within their borders a
stronghold of Indifference. As it is, their vanity is fostered by the
court that is paid to them. In ordinary men, who have no pretence to
education, this conduct, no doubt, is less to be blamed. But that men
who call themselves philosophers should actually outdo the rest in
degradation,--this, indeed, is the climax. Imagine my feelings, when I
see a brother philosopher, an old man, perhaps, mingling in the herd
of sycophants; dancing attendance on some great man; adapting himself
to the conversational level of a possible host! One thing, indeed,
serves to distinguish him from his company, and to accentuate his
disgrace;--he wears the garb of philosophy. It is much to be regretted
that actors of uniform excellence in other respects will not dress
conformably to their part. For in the achievements of the table, what
toadeater besides can be compared with them? There is an artlessness
in their manner of stuffing themselves, a frankness in their tippling,
which defy competition; they sponge with more spirit than other men,
and sit on with greater persistency. It is not an uncommon thing for
the more courtly sages to oblige the company with a song. '
All this he treated as a jest. But he had much to say on the subject
of those paid philosophers, who hawk about virtue like any other
marketable commodity. 'Hucksters' and 'petty traders' were his words
for them. A man who proposes to teach the contempt of wealth, should
begin (he maintained) by showing a soul above fees. And certainly he
has always acted on this principle himself. He is not content with
giving his services gratis to all comers, but lends a helping hand to
all who are in difficulties, and shows an absolute disregard for
riches. So far is he from grasping at other men's goods, that he could
anticipate without concern the deterioration of his own property. He
possessed an estate at no great distance from the city, on which for
many years he had never even set foot. Nay, he disclaimed all right of
property in it; meaning, I suppose, that we have no natural claim to
such things; law, and the rights of inheritance, give us the use of
them for an indefinite period, and for that time we are styled
'owners'; presently our term lapses, and another succeeds to the
enjoyment of a name.
There are other points in which he sets an admirable example to the
serious followers of philosophy: his frugal life, his systematic
habits of bodily exercise, his modest bearing, his simplicity of
dress, but above all, gentle manners and a constant mind. He urges his
followers not to postpone the pursuit of good, as so many do, who
allow themselves a period of grace till the next great festival, after
which they propose to eschew deceit and lead a righteous life; there
must be no shilly-shallying, when virtue is the goal for which we
start. On the other hand, there are philosophers whose idea of
inculcating virtue in their youthful disciples is to subject them to
various tests of physical endurance; whose favourite prescription is
the strait waistcoat, varied with flagellations, or the enlightened
process of scarification. Of these Nigrinus evidently had no opinion.
According to him, our first care should be to inure the _soul_ to
pain and hardship; he who aspired to educate men aright must reckon
with soul as well as body, with the age of his pupils, and with their
previous training; he would then escape the palpable blunder of
overtasking them. Many a one (he affirmed) had succumbed under the
unreasonable strain put upon him; and I met with an instance myself,
of a man who had tasted the hardships of those schools, but no sooner
heard the words of true wisdom, than he fled incontinently to
Nigrinus, and was manifestly the better for the change.
Leaving the philosophers to themselves, he reverted to more general
subjects: the din and bustle of the city, the theatres, the
race-course, the statues of charioteers, the nomenclature of horses,
the horse-talk in every side-street. The rage for horses has become a
positive epidemic; many persons are infected with it whom one would
have credited with more sense.
Then the scene changed to the pomp and circumstance attendant upon
funerals and testamentary dispositions. 'Only once in his life' (he
observed) 'does your thoroughbred Roman say what he means; and then,'
meaning, in his will, 'it comes too late for him to enjoy the credit
of it. ' I could not help laughing when he told me how they thought it
necessary to carry their follies with them to the grave, and to leave
the record of their inanity behind them in black and white; some
stipulating that their clothes or other treasures should be burnt with
them, others that their graves should be watched by particular
servants, or their monuments crowned with flowers;--sapient end to a
life of sapience! 'Of their doings in this world,' said he, 'you may
form some idea from their injunctions with reference to the next.
These are they who will pay a long price for an entree; whose floors
are sprinkled with wine and saffron and spices; who in midwinter
smother themselves in roses, ay, for roses are scarce, and out of
season, and altogether desirable; but let a thing come in its due
course, and oh, 'tis vile, 'tis contemptible. These are they whose
drink is of costly essences. ' He had no mercy on them here. 'Very
bunglers in sensuality, who know not her laws, and confound her
ordinances, flinging down their souls to be trampled beneath the heels
of luxury! As the play has it, Door or window, all is one to them.
Such pleasures are rank solecism. ' One observation of his in the same
spirit fairly caps the famous censure of Momus. Momus found fault with
the divine artificer for not putting his bull's horns in front of the
eyes. Similarly, Nigrinus complained that when these men crown
themselves in their banquets, they put the garlands in the wrong
place; if they are so fond of the smell of violets and roses, they
should tie on their garlands as close as may be under their nostrils;
they could then snuff up the smell to their hearts' content.
Proceeding to the gentlemen who make such a serious work of their
dinner, he was exceedingly merry over their painful elaborations of
sauce and seasoning. 'Here again,' he cried, 'these men are sore put
to it, to procure the most fleeting of enjoyments. Grant them four
inches of palate apiece--'tis the utmost we can allow any man--and I
will prove to you that they have four inches of gratification for
their trouble. Thus: there is no satisfaction to be got out of the
costliest viands before consumption; and after it a full stomach is
none the better for the price it has cost to fill it. _Ergo_, the
money is paid for the pleasure snatched _in transitu_. But what are we
to expect? These men are too grossly ignorant to discern those truer
pleasures with which Philosophy rewards our resolute endeavours. '
The Baths proved a fertile topic, what with the insolence of the
masters and the jostlings of their men;--'they will not stand without
the support of a slave; it is much that they retain enough vitality to
get away on their own legs at all. ' One practice which obtains in the
streets and Baths of Rome seemed to arouse his particular resentment.
Slaves have to walk on ahead of their masters, and call out to them to
'look to their feet,' whenever there is a hole or a lump in their way;
it has come to this, that men must be _reminded that they are
walking_. 'It is too much,' he cried; 'these men can get through their
dinner with the help of their own teeth and fingers; they can hear
with their own ears: yet they must have other men's eyes to see for
them! They are in possession of all their faculties: yet they are
content to be spoken to in language which should only be addressed to
poor maimed wretches! And this goes on in broad daylight, in our
public places; and among the sufferers are men who are responsible for
the welfare of cities! '
This he said, and much more to the same effect. At length he was
silent. All the time I had listened in awestruck attention, dreading
the moment when he should cease. And when it was all over, my
condition was like that of the Phaeacians. For a long time I gazed
upon him, spellbound; then I was seized with a violent attack of
giddiness; I was bathed in perspiration, and when I attempted to
speak, I broke down; my voice failed, my tongue stammered, and at last
I was reduced to tears. Mine was no surface wound from a random shaft.
The words had sunk deep into a vital part; had come with true aim, and
cleft my soul asunder. For (if I may venture to philosophize on my own
account) I conceive the case thus:-A well-conditioned human soul is
like a target of some soft material. As life goes on, many archers
take aim thereat; and every man's quiver is full of subtle and varied
arguments, but not every man shoots aright. Some draw the bow too
tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction,
but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them
right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a
gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows
are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as
often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to
earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; there
can be no deep wound, where the archer lacks strength. But a good
marksman, a Nigrinus, begins with a careful examination of the mark,
in case it should be particularly soft,--or again too hard; for there
are marks which will take no impression from an arrow. Satisfied on
this point, he dips his shaft, not in the poisons of Scythia or Crete,
but in a certain ointment of his own, which is sweet in flavour and
gentle in operation; then, without more ado, he lets fly. The shaft
speeds with well-judged swiftness, cleaves the mark right through, and
remains lodged in it; and the drug works its way through every part.
Thus it is that men hear his words with mingled joy and grief; and
this was my own case, while the drug was gently diffusing itself
through my soul. Hence I was moved to apostrophize him in the words of
Homer:
So aim; and thou shalt bring (to some) salvation.
For as it is not every man that is maddened by the sound of the
Phrygian flute, but only those who are inspired of Cybele, and by
those strains are recalled to their frenzy,--so too not every man who
hears the words of the philosophers will go away possessed, and
stricken at heart, but only those in whose nature is something akin to
philosophy.
_Fr_. These are fearful and wonderful words; nay, they are divine. All
that you said of ambrosia and lotus is true; I little knew how
sumptuous had been your feast. I have listened to you with strange
emotion, and now that you have ceased, I feel oppressed, nay, in your
own language, 'sore stricken. ' This need not surprise you. A person
who has been bitten by a mad dog not only goes mad himself, you know,
but communicates his madness to any one whom he bites whilst he is in
that state, so that the infection may be carried on by this means
through a long succession of persons.
_Luc_. Ah, then you confess to a tenderness?
_Fr_. I do; and beg that you will think upon some medicine for both
our wounded breasts.
_Luc_. We must take a hint from Telephus.
_Fr_. What is that?
_Luc_. We want a hair of the dog that bit us.
F.
TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS
Archon, Aristarchus of Phalerum. Seventh Pyanepsion. Court of the
Seven Vowels. Action for assault with robbery. Sigma _v_. Tau.
Plaintiff's case--that the words in-pp-are wrongfully withheld from
him.
Vowels of the jury. --For some time this Mr. Tau's trespasses and
encroachments on my property were of minor importance; I made no claim
for damages, and affected unconsciousness of what I heard; my
conciliatory temper both you and the other letters have reason to
know. His covetousness and folly, however, have now so puffed him up,
that he is no longer content with my habitual concessions, but insists
on more; I accordingly find myself compelled to get the matter settled
by you who know both sides of it. The fact is, I am in bodily fear,
owing to the crushing to which I am subjected. This evergrowing
aggression will end by ousting me completely from my own; I shall be
almost dumb, lose my rank as a letter, and be degraded to a mere
noise.
Justice requires then that not merely you, the jury in this case, but
the other letters also, should be on your guard against such attempts.
If any one who chooses is to be licensed to leave his own place and
usurp that of others, with no objection on your part (whose
concurrence is an indispensable condition of all writing), I fail to
see how combinations are to have their ancient constitutional rights
secured to them. But my first reliance is upon you, who will surely
never be guilty of the negligence and indifference which permits
injustice; and even if you decline the contest, I have no intention of
sitting down under that injustice myself.
It is much to be regretted that the assaults of other letters were not
repelled when they first began their lawless practices; then we should
not be watching the still pending dispute between Lambda and Rho for
possession of _kephalalgia_ or _kephalargia_, _kishlis_ or _kishris_:
Gamma would not have had to defend its rights over _gyaphalla_,
constantly almost at blows with Kappa in the debatable land, and _per
contra_ it would itself have dropped its campaign against Lambda (if
indeed it is more dignified than petty larceny) for converting _molis_
to _mogis_: in fact lawless confusion generally would have been nipped
in the bud. And it is well to abide by the established order; such
trespasses betray a revolutionary spirit.
Now our first legislators--Cadmus the islander, Palamedes, son of
Nauplius, or Simonides, whom some authorities credit with the
measure--were not satisfied with determining merely our order of
precedence in the alphabet; they also had an eye to our individual
qualities and faculties. You, Vowels of the jury, constitute the first
Estate, because you can be uttered independently; the semi-vowels,
requiring support before they can be distinctly heard, are the second;
and the lowest Estate they declared to consist of those nine which
cannot be sounded at all by themselves. The vowels are accordingly the
natural guardians of our laws.
But this--this Tau--I would give him a worse designation, but that is
a manifest impossibility; for without the assistance of two good
presentable members of your Estate, Alpha and Upsilon, he would be a
mere nonentity--he it is that has dared to outdo all injuries that I
have ever known, expelling me from the nouns and verbs of my
inheritance, and hunting me out of my conjunctions and prepositions,
till his rapacity has become quite unbearable. I am now to trace
proceedings from the beginning.
I was once staying at Cybelus, a pleasant little town, said to be an
Athenian colony; my travelling companion was the excellent Rho, best
of neighbours. My host was a writer of comedies, called Lysimachus; he
seems to have been a Boeotian by descent, though he represented
himself as coming from the interior of Attica. It was while with him
that I first detected Tau's depredations [Footnote: For the probably
corrupt passage Section 7 fin. --Section 8 init. I accept Dindorf's
rearrangement as follows: mechr men gar oligois epecheirei,
tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de taemeron kai ta homoia epispomenon,
sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti legein, kai oiston aen moi to akousma
kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep autois. 8. hupote d ek touton arxamenon
etolmaese kattiteron eipein kai kattuma kai pittan, eita aperuthriasan
kai basilitgan onomazein, aposteroun me ton suggegenaemenun moi kai
suntethrammenun grammatun, ou metrius ipi toutois aganaktu. ]. For some
earlier occasional attempts (as when he took to tettaroakonta for
tessarakonta, taemeron for saemeron, with little pilferings of that
sort) I had explained as a trick and peculiarity of pronunciation; I
had tolerated the sound without letting it annoy me seriously.
But impunity emboldened him; kassiteros became kattiteros, kassuma and
pissa shared its fate; and then he cast off all shame and assaulted
basigissa. I found myself losing the society in which I had been born
and bred [Footnote: For the probably corrupt passage Section 7 fin. --
Section 8 init. I accept Dindorf's rearrangement as follows: _mechr
men gar oligois epecheirei, tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de
taemeron kai ta homoia epispomenon, sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti
legein, kai oiston aen moi to akousma kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep
autois_. 8. _hupote d ek touton arxamenon etolmaese kattiteron eipein
kai kattuma kai pittan, eita aperuthriasan kai basilitgan onomazein,
aposteroun me ton suggegenaemenun moi kai suntethrammenun grammatun,
ou metrius ipi toutois aganaktu. </i]; at such a time equanimity is out
of place; I am tortured with apprehension; how long will it be before
_suka_ is _tuka_? Bear with me, I beseech you; I despair and have none
to help me; do I not well to be angry? It is no petty everyday peril,
this threatened separation from my long-tried familiars. My _kissa_,
my talking bird that nestled in my breast, he has torn away and named
anew; my _phassa_, my _nhssai_, my _khossuphoi_--all gone; and I had
Aristarchus's own word that they were mine; half my _melissai_ he has
lured to strange hives; Attica itself he has invaded, and wrongfully
annexed its Hymettus (as he calls it); and you and the rest looked on
at the seizure.
But why dwell on such trifles? I am driven from all Thessaly
(Thettaly, forsooth! ), _thalassa_ is now _mare clausum_ to me; he will
not leave me a poor garden-herb like _seutlion_, I have never a
_passalos_ to hang myself upon. What a long-suffering letter I am
myself, your own knowledge is witness enough. When Zeta stole my
_smaragdos_, and robbed me of all Smyrna, I never took proceedings
against him; Xi might break all _sunthhkai_, and appeal to Thucydides
(who ought to know) as xympathizing with his xystem; I let them alone.
My neighbour Rho I made no difficulty about pardoning as an invalid,
when he transplanted my _mursinai_ into his garden, or, in a fit of
the spleen, took liberties with my _khopsh_. So much for my temper.
Tau's, on the other hand, is naturally violent; its manifestations are
not confined to me. In proof that he has not spared other letters, but
assaulted Delta, Theta, Zeta, and almost the whole alphabet, I wish
his various victims to be put in the box. Now, Vowels of the jury,
mark the evidence of Delta:--'He robbed me of _endelecheia_, which he
claimed, quite illegally, as _entelecheia_. ' Mark Theta beating his
breast and plucking out his hair in grief for the loss of
_kolokunthh_. And Zeta mourns for _surizein_ and _salpizein_--nay,
_cannot_ mourn, for lack of his gryzein. What tolerance is possible,
what penalty adequate, for this criminal letter's iniquities?
But his wrongs are not even limited to us, his own species; he has now
extended his operations to mankind, as I shall show. He does not
permit their tongues to work straight. (But that mention of mankind
calls me back for a moment, reminding me how he turns glossa into
glotta, half robbing me of the tongue itself. Ay, you are a disease of
the tongue in every sense, Tau. ) But I return from that digression, to
plead the cause of mankind and its wrongs. The prisoner's designs
include the constraint, racking, and mutilation of their utterance. A
man sees a beautiful thing, and wishes to describe it as kalon, but in
comes Tau, and forces the man to say talon _he_ must have precedence
everywhere, of course. Another man has something to say about a vine,
and lo, before it is out, it is metamorphosed by this miserable
creature into misery; he has changed slaema to tlaema, with a
suggestive hint of tlaemon. And, not content with middle-class
victims, he aims at the Persian king himself, the one for whom land
and sea are said to have made way and changed their nature: Cyrus
comes out at his bidding as Tyrus.
Such are his verbal offences against man; his offences in deed remain.
Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for
introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body
that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they
set up the erections on which men are crucified. Stayros the vile
engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all
these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths?
For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape
--that shape which he gave to the gibbet named Stayros after him by
men.
H.
TIMON THE MISANTHROPE
_Timon. Zeus. Hermes. Plutus. Poverty. Gnathonides.
