No More Learning

I am able to record its considerable wisdom, shown in evading the
plots of its enemy the spider. It is always on the look-out for his
ambushes, and in the most circumspect way dodges about, that it may
not be caught, netted, and entangled in his meshes. Its valour and
spirit require no mention of mine; Homer, mightiest-voiced of
poets, seeking a compliment for the greatest of heroes, likens his
spirit not to a lion's, a panther's, a boar's, but to the courage
of the fly, to its unshrinking and persistent assault; mark, it is
not mere audacity, but courage, that he attributes to it. Though
you drive it off, he says, it will not leave you; it will have its
bite. He is so earnest an admirer of the fly that he alludes to it
not once nor twice, but constantly; a mention of it is felt to be a
poetic ornament. Now it is its multitudinous descent upon the milk
that he celebrates; now he is in want of an illustration for Athene
as she wards off a spear from the vitals of Menelaus; so he makes
her a mother caring for her sleeping child, and in comes the fly
again. Moreover he gives them that pretty epithet, 'thick-
clust'ring'; and 'nations' is his dignified word for a swarm of
them.

The fly's force is shown by the fact that its bite pierces not
merely the human skin, but that of cattle and horses; it annoys
the elephant by getting into the folds of its hide, and letting
it know the efficiency of even a tiny trunk. There is much ease
and freedom about their love affairs, which are not disposed of
so expeditiously as by the domestic fowl; the act of union is
prolonged, and is found quite compatible with flight. A fly will
live and breathe for some time after its head is cut off.

The most remarkable point about its natural history is that which I
am now to mention. It is the one fact that Plato seems to me to
have overlooked in his discourse of the soul and its immortality.
If a little ashes be sprinkled on a dead fly, it gets up,
experiences a second birth, and starts life afresh, which is
recognized as a convincing proof that its soul is immortal,
inasmuch as after it has departed it returns, recognizes and
reanimates the body, and enables it to fly; so is confirmed the
tale about Hermotimus of Clazomenae--how his soul frequently left
him and went off on its own account, and afterwards returning
occupied the body again and restored the man to life.

It toils not, but lives at its case, profiting by the labours of
others, and finding everywhere a table spread for it. For it the
goats are milked, for its behoof and man's the honey is stored, to
its palate the _chef_ adapts his sauces; it tastes before the
king himself, walks upon his table, shares his meal, and has the
use of all that is his.

Nest, home, local habitation, it has none; like the Scythians, it
elects to lead a wandering life, and where night finds it, there is
its hearth and its chamber. But as I said, it works no deeds of
darkness; 'live openly' is its motto; its principle is to do no
villany that, done in the face of day, would dishonour it.

Legend tells how Myia (the fly's ancient name) was once a maiden,
exceeding fair, but over-given to talk and chatter and song,
Selene's rival for the love of Endymion. When the young man slept,
she was for ever waking him with her gossip and tunes and
merriment, till he lost patience, and Selene in wrath turned her to
what she now is. And therefore it is that she still, in memory of
Endymion, grudges all sleepers their rest, and most of all the
young and tender. Her very bite and blood-thirst tell not of
savagery, but of love and human kindness; she is but enjoying
mankind as she may, and sipping beauty.

In ancient times there was a woman of her name, a poetess wise and
beautiful, and another a famous Attic courtesan, of whom the comic
poet wrote:

As deep as to his heart fair Myia bit him.

The comic Muse, we see, disdained not the name, nor refused it the
hospitality of the boards; and parents took no shame to give it to
their daughters. Tragedy goes further and speaks of the fly in high
terms of praise, as witness the following:

Foul shame the little fly, with might courageous,
Should leap upon men's limbs, athirst for blood,
But men-at-arms shrink from the foeman's steel!

I might add many details about Pythagoras's daughter Myia, were not
her story too well known.

There are also flies of very large size, called generally soldier-
flies, or dog-flies; these have a hoarse buzz, a very rapid
flight, and quite long lives; they last the winter through without
food, mostly in sheltered nooks below the roof; the most remarkable
fact about these is that they are hermaphrodites.

But I must break off; not that my subject is exhausted; only that
to exhaust such a subject is too like breaking a butterfly on the
wheel.




REMARKS ADDRESSED TO AN ILLITERATE BOOK-FANCIER


Let me tell you, that you are choosing the worst way to attain your
object. You think that by buying up all the best books you can lay
your hands on, you will pass for a man of literary tastes: not a
bit of it; you are merely exposing thereby your own ignorance of
literature. Why, you cannot even buy the right things: any casual
recommendation is enough to guide your choice; you are as clay in
the hands of the unscrupulous amateur, and as good as cash down to
any dealer. How are you to know the difference between genuine old
books that are worth money, and trash whose only merit is that it
is falling to pieces? You are reduced to taking the worms and moths
into your confidence; their activity is your sole clue to the value
of a book; as to the accuracy and fidelity of the copyist, that is
quite beyond you.

And supposing even that you had managed to pick out such veritable
treasures as the exquisite editions of Callinus, or those of the
far-famed Atticus, most conscientious of publishers,--what does it
profit you? Their beauty means nothing to you, my poor friend; you
will get precisely as much enjoyment out of them as a blind lover
would derive from the possession of a handsome mistress. Your eyes,
to be sure, are open; you do see your books, goodness knows, see
them till you must be sick of the sight; you even read a bit here
and there, in a scrambling fashion, your lips still busy with one
sentence while your eyes are on the next. But what is the use of
that? You cannot tell good from bad: you miss the writer's general
drift, you miss his subtle arrangements of words: the chaste
elegance of a pure style, the false ring of the counterfeit,--'tis
all one to you.

Are we to understand that you possess literary discernment without
the assistance of any study? And how should that be? perhaps, like
Hesiod, you received a laurel-branch from the Muses? As to that, I
doubt whether you have so much as heard of Helicon, the reputed
haunt of those Goddesses; your youthful pursuits were not those of
a Hesiod; take not the Muses' names in vain. They might not have
any scruples about appearing to a hardy, hairy, sunburnt shepherd:
but as for coming near such a one as you (you will excuse my
particularizing further just now, when I appeal to you in the name
of the Goddess of Lebanon? ) they would scorn the thought; instead
of laurel, you would have tamarisk and mallow-leaves about your
back; the waters of Olmeum and Hippocrene are for thirsty sheep and
stainless shepherds, they must not be polluted by unclean lips. I
grant you a very creditable stock of effrontery: but you will
scarcely have the assurance to call yourself an educated man; you
will scarcely pretend that your acquaintance with literature is
more than skin-deep, or give us the names of your teacher and your
fellow students?

No; you think you are going to work off all arrears by the simple
expedient of buying a number of books. But there again: you may get
together the works of Demosthenes, and his eight beautiful copies
of Thucydides, all in the orator's own handwriting, and all the
manuscripts that Sulla sent away from Athens to Italy,--and you
will be no nearer to culture at the end of it, though you should
sleep with them under your pillow, or paste them together and wear
them as a garment; an ape is still an ape, says the proverb, though
his trappings be of gold. So it is with you: you have always a book
in your hand, you are always reading; but what it is all about, you
have not an idea; you do but prick up asinine ears at the lyre's
sound. Books would be precious things indeed, if the mere
possession of them guaranteed culture to their owner. You rich men
would have it all your own way then; we paupers could not stand
against you, if learning were a marketable commodity; and as for
the dealers, no one would presume to contest the point of culture
with men who have whole shopfuls of books at their disposal.
However, you will find on examination that these privileged persons
are scarcely less ignorant than yourself. They have just your vile
accent, and are as deficient in intelligence as one would expect
men to be who have never learnt to distinguish good from bad. Now
you see, _you_ have merely bought a few odd volumes from them:
they are at the fountain-head, and are handling books day and
night. Judge from this how much good your purchases are likely to
do you; unless you think that your very book-cases acquire a
tincture of learning, from the bare fact of their housing so many
ancient manuscripts.

Oblige me by answering some questions; or rather, as circumstances
will not admit of your answering, just nod or shake your head. If
the flute of Timotheus, or that of Ismenias, which its owner sold
in Corinth for a couple of thousand pounds, were to fall into the
hands of a person who did not know how to play the instrument,
would that make him a flute-player? would his acquisition leave him
any wiser than it found him? You very properly shake your head. A
man might possess the instrument of a Marsyas or an Olympus, and
still he would not be able to play it if he had never learnt. Take
another case: a man gets hold of Heracles's bow and arrows: but he
is no Philoctetes; he has neither that marksman's strength nor his
eye. What do you say? will he acquit himself creditably? Again you
shake your head. The same will be the case with the ignorant pilot
who is entrusted with a ship, or with the unpractised rider on
horseback. Nothing is wanting to the beauty and efficiency of the
vessel, and the horse may be a Median or a Thessalian or a Koppa
[Footnote: The brand of the obsolete letter Koppa is supposed to
have denoted the Corinthian breed. ]: yet I take it that the
incompetence of their respective owners will be made clear; am I
right? And now let me ask your assent to one more proposition: if
an illiterate person like yourself goes in for buying books, he is
thereby laying himself open to ridicule. You hesitate? Yet surely
nothing could be clearer: who could observe such a man at work, and
abstain from the inevitable allusion to pearls and swine?

There was a wealthy man in Asia, not many years ago, who was so
unfortunate as to lose both his feet; I think he had been
travelling through snow-drifts, and had got them frost-bitten.
Well, of course, it was a very hard case; and in ordering a pair of
wooden feet, by means of which he contrived to get along with the
assistance of servants, he was no doubt only making the best of a
bad job. But the absurd thing was, that he would always make a
point of having the smartest and newest of shoes to set off his
stumps--feet, I mean. Now are you any wiser than he, when for the
adornment of that hobbling, wooden understanding of yours you go to
the expense of such golden shoes as would tax the agility of a
sound-limbed intellect?

Among your other purchases are several copies of Homer. Get some
one to turn up the second book of the Iliad, and read to you. There
is only one part you need trouble about; the rest does not apply to
your case. I refer to the harangue of a certain ludicrous, maimed,
distorted creature called Thersites. Now imagine this Thersites,
such as he is there depicted, to have clothed himself in the armour
of Achilles. What will be the result? Will he be converted there
and then into a stalwart, comely warrior, clearing the river at a
bound, and staining its waters with Phrygian blood? Will he prove a
slayer of Asteropaeuses and Lycaons, and finally of Hectors, he who
cannot so much as bear Achilles's spear upon his shoulders? Of
course not. He will simply be ridiculous: the weight of the shield
will cause him to stagger, and will presently bring him on to his
nose; beneath the helmet, as often as he looks up, will be seen
that squint; the Achillean greaves will be a sad drag to his
progress, and the rise and fall of the breast-plate will tell a
tale of a humped-back; in short, neither the armourer nor the owner
of the arms will have much to boast of. You are just like
Thersites, if only you could see it. When you take in hand your
fine volume, purple-cased, gilt-bossed, and begin reading with that
accent of yours, maiming and murdering its contents, you make
yourself ridiculous to all educated men: your own toadies commend
you, but they generally get in a chuckle too, as they catch one
another's eye.

Let me tell you a story of what happened once at Delphi. A native
of Tarentum, Evangelus by name, a person of some note in his own
city, conceived the ambition of winning a prize in the Pythian
Games. Well, he saw at once that the athletic contests were quite
out of the question; he had neither the strength nor the agility
required. A musical victory, on the other hand, would be an easy
matter; so at least he was persuaded by his vile parasites, who
used to burst into a roar of applause the moment he touched the
strings of his lyre. He arrived at Delphi in great style: among
other things, he had provided himself with gold-bespangled
garments, and a beautiful golden laurel-wreath, with full-size
emerald berries. As for his lyre, that was a most gorgeous and
costly affair--solid gold throughout, and ornamented with all
kinds of gems, and with figures of Apollo and Orpheus and the
Muses, a wonder to all beholders. The eventful day at length
arrived. There were three competitors, of whom Evangelus was to
come second. Thespis the Theban performed first, and acquitted
himself creditably; and then Evangelus appeared, resplendent in
gold and emeralds, beryls and jacinths, the effect being heightened
by his purple robe, which made a background to the gold; the house
was all excitement and wondering anticipation. As singing and
playing were an essential part of the competition, Evangelus now
struck up with a few meaningless, disconnected notes, assaulting
his lyre with such needless violence that he broke three strings at
the start; and when he began to sing with his discordant pipe of a
voice the whole audience was convulsed with laughter, and the
stewards, enraged at his presumption, scourged him out of the
theatre. Our golden Evangelus now presented a very queer spectacle,
as the floggers drove him across the stage, weeping and bloody-
limbed, and stooping to pick up the gems that had fallen from the
lyre; for that instrument had come in for its share of the
castigation. His place was presently taken by one Eumelus of Elis:
his lyre was an old one, with wooden pegs, and his clothes and
crown would scarcely have fetched ten shillings between them. But
for all that his well-managed voice and admirable execution caused
him to be proclaimed the victor; and he was very merry over the
unavailing splendours of his rival's gem-studded instrument.
'Evangelus,' he is reported to have said to him, 'yours is the
golden laurel--you can afford it: I am a pauper, and must put up
with the Delphian wreath. No one will be sorry for your defeat;
your arrogance and incompetence have made you an object of
detestation; that is all your equipment has done for you. ' Here
again the application is obvious; Evangelus differing from you only
in his sensibility to public ridicule.

I have also an old Lesbian story which is very much to the point.
It is said that after Orpheus had been torn to pieces by the
Thracian women, his head and his lyre were carried down the Hebrus
into the sea; the head, it seems, floated down upon the lyre,
singing Orpheus's dirge as it went, while the winds blew an
accompaniment upon the strings. In this manner they reached the
coast of Lesbos; the head was then taken up and buried on the site
of the present temple of Bacchus, and the lyre was long preserved
as a relic in the temple of Apollo. Later on, however, Neanthus,
son of the tyrant Pittacus, hearing how the lyre had charmed beasts
and trees and stones, and how after Orpheus's destruction it had
played of its own accord, conceived a violent fancy for the
instrument, and by means of a considerable bribe prevailed upon the
priest to give him the genuine lyre, and replace it with one of
similar appearance. Not thinking it advisable to display his
acquisition in the city in broad daylight, he waited till night,
and then, putting it under his cloak, walked off into the
outskirts; and there this youth, who had not a note of music in
him, produced his instrument and began jangling on the strings,
expecting such divine strains to issue therefrom as would subdue
all souls, and prove him the fortunate heir to Orpheus's power. He
went on till a number of dogs collected at the sound and tore him
limb from limb; thus far, at least, his fate resembled that of
Orpheus, though his power of attraction extended only to hostile
dogs. It was abundantly proved that the charm lay not in the lyre,
but solely in those peculiar gifts of song and music that had been
bestowed upon Orpheus by his mother; as to the lyre, it was just
like other lyres.

But there: what need to go back to Orpheus and Neanthus? We have
instances in our own days: I believe the man is still alive who
paid 120 pounds for the earthenware lamp of Epictetus the Stoic. I
suppose he thought he had only to read by the light of that lamp,
and the wisdom of Epictetus would be communicated to him in his
dreams, and he himself assume the likeness of that venerable sage.
And it was only a day or two ago that another enthusiast paid down
250 pounds for the staff dropped by the Cynic Proteus [Footnote:
See _Peregrine_ in Notes. ] when he leaped upon the pyre. He
treasures this relic, and shows it off just as the people of Tegea
do the hide of the Calydonian boar [Footnote: See _Oenevs_ in
Notes. ], or the Thebans the bones of Geryon, or the Memphians Isis'
hair. Now the original owner of this precious staff was one who for
ignorance and vulgarity would have borne away the palm from
yourself. --My friend, you are in a bad way: a stick across the head
is what you want.

They say that when Dionysius took to tragedy-writing he made such
sad stuff of it that Philoxenus was more than once thrown into the
quarries because he could not control his laughter. Finding that
his efforts only made him ridiculous, Dionysius was at some pains
to procure the tablets on which Aeschylus had been wont to write.
He looked to draw divine inspiration from them: as it turned out,
however, he now wrote considerably worse rubbish than before. Among
the contents of the tablets I may quote:

'Twas Dionysius' wife, Doridion.

Here is another:

Most serviceable woman! thou art gone!

Genuine tablet that, and the next:

Men that are fools are their own folly's butt.

Taken with reference to yourself, by the way, nothing could be more
to the point than this last line; Dionysius's tablets deserved
gilding, if only for that.

What is your idea, now, in all this rolling and unrolling of
scrolls? To what end the gluing and the trimming, the cedar-oil and
saffron, the leather cases and the bosses? Much good your purchases
have been to you; one sees that already: why, your language--no, I
am wrong there, you are as dumb as a fish-but your life, your
unmentionable vices, make every one hate the sight of you; if that
is what books do, one cannot keep too clear of them. There are two
ways in which a man may derive benefit from the study of the
ancients: he may learn to express himself, or he may improve his
morals by their example and warning; when it is clear that he has
not profited in either of these respects, what are his books but a
habitation for mice and vermin, and a source of castigation to
negligent servants?

And how very foolish you must look when any one finds you with a
book in your hand (and you are never to be seen without) and asks
you who is your orator, your poet, or your historian: you have seen
the title, of course, and can answer that question pat: but then
one word brings up another, and some criticism, favourable or the
reverse, is passed upon the contents of your volume: you are dumb
and helpless; you pray for the earth to open and swallow you; you
stand like Bellerophon with the warrant for your own execution in
your hand.

Once in Corinth Demetrius the Cynic found some illiterate person
reading aloud from a very handsome volume, the Bacchae of
Euripides, I think it was. He had got to the place where the
messenger is relating the destruction of Pentheus by Agave, when
Demetrius snatched the book from him and tore it in two: 'Better,'
he exclaimed, 'that Pentheus should suffer one rending at my hands
than many at yours. '

I have often wondered, though I have never been able to satisfy
myself, what it is that makes you such an ardent buyer of books.
The idea of your making any profitable use of them is one that
nobody who has the slightest acquaintance with you would entertain
for a moment: does the bald man buy a comb, the blind a mirror, the
deaf a flute-player? the eunuch a concubine, the landsman an oar,
the pilot a plough? Are you merely seizing an opportunity of
displaying your wealth? Is it just your way of showing the public
that you can afford to spend money even on things that are of no
use to you? Why, even a Syrian like myself knows that if you had
not got your name foisted into that old man's will, you would have
been starving by this time, and all your books must have been put
up to sale.

Only one possible explanation remains: your toadies have made you
believe that in addition to your charms of person you have an
extraordinary gift for rhetoric, history, and philosophy; and you
buy books merely to countenance their flatteries. It seems that you
actually hold forth to them at table; and they, poor thirsty frogs,
must croak dry-throated applause till they burst, or there is no
drink for them. You are a most curiously gullible person: you take
in every word they say to you. You were made to believe at one time
that your features resembled those of a certain Emperor. We had had
a pseudo-Alexander, and a pseudo-Philip, the fuller, and there was
a pseudo-Nero as recently as our own grandfathers' times: you were
for adding one more to the noble army of pseudos. After all, it was
nothing for an illiterate fool like you to take such a fancy into
his head, and walk about with his chin in the air, aping the gait
and dress and expression of his supposed model: even the Epirot
king Pyrrhus, remarkable man that he was in other respects, had the
same foible, and was persuaded by his flatterers that he was like
Alexander, Alexander the Great, that is. In point of fact, I have
seen Pyrrhus's portrait, and the two--to borrow a musical phrase--
are about as much like one another as bass and treble; and yet he
was convinced he was the image of Alexander. However, if that were
all, it would be rather too bad of me to insult Pyrrhus by the
comparison: but I am justified by the sequel; it suits your case so
exactly. When once Pyrrhus had got this fancy into his head, every
one else ran mad for company, till at last an old woman of Larissa,
who did not know Pyrrhus, told him the plain truth, and cured his
delusion. After showing her portraits of Philip, Perdiccas,
Alexander, Casander, and other kings, Pyrrhus finally asked her
which of these he resembled, taking it as a matter of course that
she would fix upon Alexander: however, she considered for some
time, and at length informed him that he was most like Batrachion
the cook, there being a cook of that name in Larissa who _was_
very like Pyrrhus. What particular theatrical pander _you_
most resemble I will not pretend to decide: all I can state with
certainty is that to this day you pass for a raving madman on the
strength of this fancy. . After such an instance of your critical
discernment, we need not be surprised to find that your flatterers
have inspired you with the further ambition of being taken for a
scholar.

But I am talking nonsense. The cause of your bibliomania is clear
enough; I must have been dozing, or I should have seen it long ago.
This is your idea of strategy: you know the Emperor's scholarly
tastes, and his respect for culture, and you think it will be worth
something to you if he hears of your literary pursuits. Once let
your name be mentioned to him as a great buyer and collector of
books, and you reckon that your fortune is made. Vile creature! and
is the Emperor drugged with mandragora that he should hear of this
and never know the rest, your daylight iniquities, your tipplings,
your monstrous nightly debauches? Know you not that an Emperor has
many eyes and many ears? Yet _your_ deeds are such as cannot
be concealed from the blind or the deaf. I may tell you at once, as
you seem not to know it, that a man's hopes of the Imperial favour
depend not on his book-bills, but on his character and daily life.
Are you counting upon Atticus and Callinus, the copyists, to put in
a good word for you? Then you are deceived: those relentless
gentlemen propose, with the Gods' good leave, to grind you down and
reduce you to utter destitution. Come to your senses while there is
yet time: sell your library to some scholar, and whilst you are
about it sell your new house too, and wipe off part of your debt to
the slave-dealers.

You see, you will ride both these hobbies at once; there is the
trouble: besides your expensive books you must have your
superannuated minions; you are insatiable in these pursuits, and
you cannot follow both without money. Now observe how precious a
thing is counsel. I recommend you to dispense with the superfluous,
and confine your attention to your other foible; in other words,
keep your money for the slave-dealers, or your private supplies
will run short, and you will be reduced to calling in the services
of freemen, who will want every penny you possess; otherwise there
is nothing to prevent them from telling how your time is spent when
you are in liquor. Only the other day I heard some very ugly
stories about you--backed, too, by ocular evidence: the bystanders
on that occasion are my witnesses how angry I was on your account;
I was in two minds about giving the fellow a thrashing; and the
annoying part of it was that he appealed to more than one witness
who had had the same experience and told just the same tale. Let
this be a warning to you to economize, so that you may be able to
have your enjoyments at home in all security. I do not suggest that
you should give up these practices: that is quite hopeless; the dog
that has gnawed leather once will gnaw leather always.

On the other hand, you can easily do without books. Your education
is complete; you have nothing more to learn; you have the ancients
as it were on the tip of your tongue; all history is known to you;
you are a master of the choice and management of words, you have
got the true Attic vocabulary; the multitude of your books has made
a ripe scholar of you. (You love flattery, and there is no reason
why I should not indulge you as well as another. )

But I am rather curious on one point: what are your favourite books
among so many? Plato? Antisthenes? Archilochus? Hipponax? Or are
they passed over in favour of the orators? Do you ever read the
speech of Aeschines against Timarchus? All that sort of thing I
suppose you have by heart. And have you grappled with Aristophanes
and Eupolis? Did you ever go through the _Baptae_ [Footnote:
See Cotytto in Notes. ]? Well then, you must surely have come on
some embarrassing home-truths in that play? It is difficult to
imagine that mind of yours bent upon literary studies, and those
hands turning over the pages. When do you do your reading? In the
daytime, or at night? If the former, you must do it when no one is
looking: and if the latter, is it done in the midst of more
engrossing pursuits, or do you work it in before your rhetorical
outpourings? As you reverence Cotytto, venture not again into the
paths of literature; have done with books, and keep to your own
peculiar business. If you had any sense of shame, to be sure, you
would abandon that too: think of Phaedra's indignant protest
against her sex:

Darkness is their accomplice, yet they fear not,
Fear not the chamber-walls, their confidants.

But no: you are determined not to be cured. Very well: buy book
upon book, shut them safely up, and reap the glory that comes of
possession: only, let that be enough; presume not to touch nor
read; pollute not with that tongue the poetry and eloquence of the
ancients; what harm have they ever done to you?

All this advice is thrown away, I know that. Shall an Ethiopian
change his skin? You will go on buying books that you cannot use--
to the amusement of educated men, who derive profit not from the
price of a book, nor from its handsome appearance, but from the
sense and sound of its contents. You think by the multitude of
books to supply the deficiencies of your education, and to throw
dust in our eyes. Did you but know it, you are exactly like the
quack doctors, who provide themselves with silver cupping-glasses,
gold-handled lancets, and ivory cases for their instruments; they
are quite incapable of using them when the time comes, and have to
give place to some properly qualified surgeon, who produces a
lancet with a keen edge and a rusty handle, and affords immediate
relief to the sufferer. Or here is a better parallel: take the case
of the barbers: you will find that the skilled practitioners have
just the razor, scissors, and mirror that their work requires: the
impostors' razors are numerous, and their mirrors magnificent.
However, that does not serve to conceal their incompetence, and the
result is most amusing: the average man gets his hair cut by one of
their more capable neighbours, and then goes and arranges it before
_their_ glasses. That is just what your books are good for--to
lend to other people; you are quite incapable of using them
yourself. Not that you ever have lent any one a single volume; true
to your dog-in-the-manger principles, you neither eat the corn
yourself, nor give the horse a chance.
There you have my candid opinion about your books: I shall find
other opportunities of dealing with your disreputable conduct in
general.






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Title: The Works of Lucian of Samosata, v. 4

Author: Lucian of Samosata

Translator: H W Fowler
F G Fowler

Release Date: October 30, 2014 [EBook #47242]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LUCIAN ***




Produced by Richard Tonsing, Colin Bell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









THE WORKS OF
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA

Complete with exceptions specified in the preface


TRANSLATED BY

H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER

IN FOUR VOLUMES

What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren
domestic soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the
fewest are privileged to do. --_Sartor Resartus. _

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

(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit. --_Lord
Macaulay. _

VOLUME IV

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1905

HENRY FROWDE, M. A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO




CONTENTS OF VOL. IV


PAGE

SLANDER, A WARNING 1
#Peri tou mê rhadiôs pisteuein diabolê. #

THE HALL 12
#Peri tou oikou. #

PATRIOTISM 23
#Patridos enkômion. #

DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE 26
#Peri tôn dipsadôn. #

A WORD WITH HESIOD 30
#Dialexis pros Hêsiodon. #

THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES 33
#Ploion ê euchai. #

DIALOGUES OF THE HETAERAE 52-78
#Hetairikoi dialogoi. #

I, 52; II, 53; III, 55; IV, 57; VII, 60; VIII, 62;
IX, 64; XI, 67; XII, 69; XIII, 72; XIV, 75; XV, 77.

THE DEATH OF PEREGRINE 79
#Peri tês Peregrinou teleutês. #

THE RUNAWAYS 95
#Drapetai. #

SATURNALIA 108
#Ta pros Kronon. #

CRONOSOLON 113
#Kronosolôn. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, I 117
#Epistolai Kronikai, a. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, II 120
#Epistolai Kronikai, b. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, III 123
#Epistolai Kronikai, g. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, IV 126
#Epistolai Kronikai, d. #

A FEAST OF LAPITHAE 127
#Symposion ê Lapithai. #

DEMOSTHENES, AN ENCOMIUM 145
#Dêmosthenous enkômion. #

THE GODS IN COUNCIL 165
#Theôn ekklêsia. #

THE CYNIC 172
#Kynikos. #

THE PURIST PURIZED 181
#Pseudosophistês ê soloikistês. #

NOTES EXPLANATORY OF ALLUSIONS TO PERSONS, &C 191

ALPHABETICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 245




SLANDER, A WARNING


A terrible thing is ignorance, the source of endless human woes,
spreading a mist over facts, obscuring truth, and casting a gloom
upon the individual life. We are all walkers in darkness--or say, our
experience is that of blind men, knocking helplessly against the real,
and stepping high to clear the imaginary, failing to see what is close
at their feet, and in terror of being hurt by something that is leagues
away. Whatever we do, we are perpetually slipping about. This it is
that has found the tragic poets a thousand themes, Labdacids, Pelopids,
and all their kind. Inquiry would show that most of the calamities
put upon the boards are arranged by ignorance as by some supernatural
stage-manager. This is true enough as a generality; but I refer more
particularly to the false reports about intimates and friends that have
ruined families, razed cities, driven fathers into frenzy against their
offspring, embroiled brother with brother, children with parents, and
lover with beloved. Many are the friendships that have been cut short,
many the households set by the ears, because slander has found ready
credence.

By way of precaution against it, then, it is my design to sketch the
nature, the origin, and effects of slander, though indeed the picture
is already in existence, by the hand of Apelles. He had been traduced
in the ears of Ptolemy as an accomplice of Theodotas in the Tyrian
conspiracy. As a matter of fact he had never seen Tyre, and knew
nothing of Theodotas beyond the information that he was an officer of
Ptolemy's in charge of Phoenicia. However, that did not prevent another
painter called Antiphilus, who was jealous of his court influence and
professional skill, from reporting his supposed complicity to Ptolemy:
he had seen him at Theodotas's table in Phoenicia, whispering in his
ear all through dinner; he finally got as far as making Apelles out
prime instigator of the Tyrian revolt and the capture of Pelusium.

Ptolemy was not distinguished for sagacity; he had been brought up on
the royal diet of adulation; and the incredible tale so inflamed and
carried him away that the probabilities of the case never struck him:
the traducer was a professional rival; a painter's insignificance was
hardly equal to the part; and this particular painter had had nothing
but good at his hands, having been exalted by him above his fellows.
But no, he did not even find out whether Apelles had ever made a voyage
to Tyre; it pleased him to fall into a passion and make the palace
ring with denunciations of the ingrate, the plotter, the conspirator.
Luckily one of the prisoners, between disgust at Antiphilus's
effrontery and compassion for Apelles, stated that the poor man had
never been told a word of their designs; but for this, he would have
paid with his head for his non-complicity in the Tyrian troubles.

Ptolemy was sufficiently ashamed of himself, we learn, to make Apelles
a present of £25,000, besides handing Antiphilus over to him as a
slave. The painter was impressed by his experience, and took his
revenge upon Slander in a picture.

On the right sits a man with long ears almost of the Midas pattern,
stretching out a hand to Slander, who is still some way off, but
coming. About him are two females whom I take for Ignorance and
Assumption. Slander, approaching from the left, is an extraordinarily
beautiful woman, but with a heated, excitable air that suggests
delusion and impulsiveness; in her left hand is a lighted torch, and
with her right she is haling a youth by the hair; he holds up hands to
heaven and calls the Gods to witness his innocence. Showing Slander
the way is a man with piercing eyes, but pale, deformed, and shrunken
as from long illness; one may easily guess him to be Envy. Two female
attendants encourage Slander, acting as tire-women, and adding touches
to her beauty; according to the _cicerone_, one of these is Malice,
and the other Deceit. Following behind in mourning guise, black-robed
and with torn hair, comes (I think he named her) Repentance. She looks
tearfully behind her, awaiting shame-faced the approach of Truth. That
was how Apelles translated his peril into paint.

I propose that we too execute in his spirit a portrait of Slander and
her surroundings; and to avoid vagueness let us start with a definition
or outline. Slander, we will say, is an undefended indictment,
concealed from its object, and owing its success to one-sided
half-informed procedure. Now we have something to go upon. Further, our
actors, as in comedy[1], are three--the slanderer, the slandered, and
the recipient of the slander; let us take each in turn and see how his
case works out.

And first for our chief character, the manufacturer of the slander.
That he is not a good man needs no proof; no good man will injure his
neighbour; good men's reputation, and their credit for kindness, is
based on the benefits they confer upon their friends, not on unfounded
disparagement of others and the ousting of them from their friends'
affections.

Secondly, it is easy to realize that such a person offends against
justice, law, and piety, and is a pest to all who associate with
him. Equality in everything, and contentment with your proper share,
are the essentials of justice; inequality and over-reaching, of
injustice; _that_ every one will admit. It is not less clear that the
man who secretly slanders the absent is guilty of over-reaching; he
is insisting on entire possession of his hearer, appropriating and
enclosing his ears, guarding them against impartiality by blocking
them with prejudice. Such procedure is unjust to the last degree; we
have the testimony of the best lawgivers for that; Solon and Draco
made every juror swear that he would hear indifferently, and view both
parties with equal benevolence, till the defence should have been
compared with the prosecution and proved better or worse than it.
Before such balancing of the speeches, they considered that the forming
of a conclusion must be impious and unholy. We may indeed literally
suppose Heaven to be offended, if we license the accuser to say what he
will, and then, closing our own ears or the defendant's mouth, allow
our judgement to be dictated by the first speech. No one can say, then,
that the uttering of slander is reconcilable with the requirements of
justice, of law, or of the juror's oath. If it is objected that the
lawgivers are no sufficient authority for such extreme justice and
impartiality, I fall back on the prince of poets, who has expressed a
sound opinion, or let me say, laid down a sound law on the subject:

Nor give thy judgement, till both sides are heard.

He too was doubtless very well aware that, of all the ills that flesh
is heir to, none is more grievous or more iniquitous than that a man
should be condemned unjudged and unheard. That is precisely what the
slanderer tries to effect by exposing the slandered without trial
to his hearer's wrath, and precluding defence by the secrecy of his
denunciation.

Every such person is a skulker and a coward; he will not come into the
open; he is an ambuscader shooting from a lurking-place, whose opponent
cannot meet him nor have it out with him, but must be shot down
helplessly before he knows that war is afoot; there could be no clearer
proof that his allegations are baseless. Of course a man who knows
he is bringing true charges does the exposure in public, challenges
inquiry, and faces examination; just so no one who can win a pitched
battle will resort to ambush and deceit.

It is in kings' courts that these creatures are mostly found; they
thrive in the atmosphere of dominion and power, where envy is rife,
suspicions innumerable, and the opportunities for flattery and
back-biting endless. Where hopes are higher, there envy is more
intense, hatred more reckless, and jealousy more unscrupulous. They
all keep close watch upon one another, spying like duellists for a
weak spot. Every one would be first, and to that end shoves and elbows
his neighbour aside, and does his best to pull back or trip the man in
front of him. One whose equipment is limited to goodness is very soon
thrown down, dragged about, and finally thrust forth with ignominy;
while he who is prepared to flatter, and can make servility plausible,
is high in credit, gets first to his end, and triumphs. These people
bear out the words of Homer:

Th' impartial War-God slayeth him that slew.

Convinced that the prize is great, they elaborate their mutual
stratagems, among which slander is at once the speediest and the most
uncertain; high are the hopes with which this child of envy or hatred
is born; pitiful, gloomy and disastrous the end to which it comes.

Success is by no means the easy simple matter it may be supposed; it
demands much skill and tact, with the most concentrated attention.
Slander would never do the harm it does, if it were not made plausible;
it would never prevail against truth, that strongest of all things, if
it were not dressed up into really attractive bait.

The chief mark for it is the man who is in favour, and therefore
enviable in the eyes of his distanced competitors; they all regard
him as standing in their light, and let fly at him; every one thinks
he will be first if he can only dispose of this conspicuous person and
spoil him of his favour.