Used
mortals to play draughts in your time?
mortals to play draughts in your time?
Lucian
Voice:
harsh. Manner: offensive.
_First Master. _ Why, what is all this about? His name used to be
Cantharus when he was with me. He had long hair, and no beard, and was
apprenticed to my trade; I am a fuller, and he was in my shop, dressing
cloth.
_Phi. _ Yes, it is the same; but he has dressed to some purpose this
time, and has become a philosopher.
_First Master. _ Cantharus a philosopher! I like that. And where do I
come in?
_Second and Third Masters. _ Oh well, we shall get them all now. This
lady knows all about them, it seems.
_Phi. _ Heracles, who is this comely person with a lyre?
_Hera. _ It is Orpheus. I was on the Argo with him. He was the best of
boatswains; it was quite a pleasure to row to his singing. Welcome, my
musical friend: you have not forgotten Heracles, I hope?
_Or. _ And welcome to all of you, Philosophy, Heracles, Hermes. I should
like my reward, please: I can lay my finger on your man.
_Her. _ Then show us the way. It is useless, of course, to offer gold to
the gifted son of Calliope?
_Or. _ Oh, quite. --I will show you the house, but not the man. His
tongue might avenge him; scurrility is his strong point.
_Her. _ Lead on.
_Or. _ It is this house close by. And now I shall leave you; I have no
wish to set eyes on him.
_Her. _ Hush! Was that a woman's voice, reciting Homer?
_Phi. _ It was. Let us listen.
_Innkeeper's Wife. _ More than the gates of Hell I hate that man
Who, loving gold, cloaketh his love with lies.
_Her. _ At that rate, madam, you will have to quarrel with Cantharus:
He with his kindly host hath dealt amiss.
_Innkeeper. _ That's me. I took him in, and he ran away with my wife.
_Innk. Wife. _ Wine-witted knave, deer-hearted and dog-eyed,
Thersites, babbler loose, that nought availest
In council, nought in arms; most valiant daw,
That with thine aimless chatter chidest kings,--
_First Master. _ My rascal to a T.
_Innk. Wife. _ The dog in thee--for thou art dog and goat
And lion--doth a blasting fury breathe.
_Innkeeper. _ Wife, wife! the dogs have been too many for you; ay, and
for your virtue, so men say.
_Her. _ Hope for the best; some little Cerberus or Geryon shall call you
father, and Heracles have employment again. --Ah, no need to knock: here
they come.
_First Master. _ Ha, Cantharus, have I got you? What, nothing to say for
yourself? Let us see what you have in that wallet; beans, no doubt, or
a crust of bread.
_Her. _ Bread, indeed! Gold, a purseful of it!
_Hera. _ That need not surprise you. In Greece, you see, he was a
Cynic, but here he is all for golden Chrysippus. Next you will see him
dangling, Cleanthes-like[9], by his beard, and serve the dirty fellow
right.
_Second Master. _ Ha, you rascal there, am I mistaken, or are you my
lost Lecythio? Lecythio it is. What a figure! Lecythio a philosopher!
I'll believe anything after this.
_Her. _ Does none of you know anything about this other?
_Third Master. _ Oh yes, he is mine; but he may go hang for me.
_Her. _ And why is that?
_Third Master. _ Ah, he's a sadly leaky vessel, is Rosolio, as we used
to call him.
_Her. _ Gracious Heracles! did you hear that? Rosolio with wallet and
stick! --Friend, here is your wife again.
_Innkeeper. _ Thank you for nothing. I'll have no woman brought to bed
of an old book in my house.
_Her. _ How am I to understand that?
_Innkeeper. _ Why, the Three-headed Dog is a book, master?
_Her. _ Ay, and so was the Man with the Three Hats, for that matter.
_Masters. _ We leave the rest to you, sir.
_Her. _ This is my judgement. Let the woman return beneath her husband's
roof, or many-headed monsters will come of it. These two truant
sparks I hand over to their owners: let them follow their trades as
heretofore; Lecythio wash clothes, and Rosolio patch them;--not,
however, before his back has felt the mallow-stalk. And for Cantharus,
first let the men of pitch take him, and plaster him without mercy;
and be their pitch the vilest procurable. Then let him be led forth to
stand upon the snowy slopes of Haemus, naked and fettered.
_Can. _ Mercy! have mercy on me! Ah me! I am undone!
_First Master. _ So tragic? Come, follow me to the plasterers; and off
with that lion's-skin, lest you be taken for other than an ass.
F.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus.
[8] _Ctesis_ is Greek for 'gain. '
[9] See _Cleanthes_ in Notes.
SATURNALIA
_Cronus. His Priest_
_Pr. _ Cronus, you are in authority just now, I understand; to you our
sacrifices and ceremonies are directed; now, what can I make surest of
getting if I ask it of you at this holy season?
_Cro. _ You had better make up your own mind what to pray for, unless
you expect your ruler to be a _clairvoyant_ and know what you would
like to ask. Then, I will do my best not to disappoint you.
_Pr. _ Oh, I have done that long ago. No originality about it; the
usual thing, please,--wealth, plenty of gold, landed proprietorship, a
train of slaves, gay soft raiment, silver, ivory, in fact everything
that is worth anything. Best of Cronuses, give me some of these; your
priest should profit by your rule, and not be the one man who has to go
without all his life.
_Cro. _ Of course! _ultra vires_; these are not mine to give. So do not
sulk at being refused; ask Zeus for them; he will be in authority again
soon enough. Mine is a limited monarchy, you see. To begin with, it
only lasts a week; that over, I am a private person, just a man in the
street. Secondly, during my week the serious is barred; no business
allowed. Drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing
of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous
hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water,--such are
the functions over which I preside. But the great things, wealth and
gold and such, Zeus distributes as he will.
_Pr. _ He is not very free with them, though, Cronus. I am tired of
asking for them, as I do at the top of my voice. He never listens; he
shakes his aegis, gets the thunderbolt ready for action, puts on a
stern look, and scares you out of worrying him. He does consent now
and then, and make a man rich; but his selection is most casual; he
will pass over the good and sensible, and set fools and knaves up to
the lips in wealth, gaol-birds or debauchees most of them. But I want
to know what are the things _you_ can do.
_Cro. _ Oh, they are not to be sneezed at; it does not come to so very
little, if you make allowance for my general limitations. Perhaps you
think it a trifle always to win at dice, and be able to count on the
sice when the ace is the best the others can throw? Anyhow, there are
plenty who get as much as they can eat just because the die likes them
and does what it can for them. Others you may see naked, swimming for
their lives; and what was the reef that wrecked them, pray? that little
die. Or again, to enjoy your wine, to sing the best song at table, at
the slaves' feast to see the other waiters[1] ducked for incompetence,
while you are acclaimed victor and carry off the sausage prize,--is all
that nothing? Or you find yourself absolute monarch by favour of the
knucklebone, can have no ridiculous commands[10] laid on you, and can
lay them on the rest: one must shout out a libel on himself, another
dance naked, or pick up the flute-girl and carry her thrice round the
house; how is that for a sample of my open-handedness? If you complain
that the sovereignty is not real nor lasting, that is unreasonable of
you; you see that I, the giver of it, have a short-lived tenure myself.
Well, anything that is in my power--draughts, monarchy, song, and the
rest I have mentioned--you can ask, and welcome; _I_ will not scare you
with aegis and thunderbolt.
_Pr. _ Most kind Titan, such gifts I require not of you. Give me the
answer that was my first desire, and then count yourself to have repaid
my sacrifice sufficiently; you shall have my receipt in full.
_Cro. _ Put your question. An answer you shall have, if my knowledge is
equal to it.
_Pr. _ First, then, is the common story true? used you to eat the
children Rhea bore you? and did she steal away Zeus, and give you
a stone to swallow for a baby? did he when he grew to manhood make
victorious war upon you and drive you from your kingdom, bind and cast
you into Tartarus, you and all the powers that ranged themselves with
you?
_Cro. _ Fellow, were it any but this festive season, when 'tis lawful to
be drunken, and slaves have licence to revile their lords, the reward
for thy question, for this thy rudeness to a grey-haired aged God, had
been the knowledge that wrath is yet permitted me.
_Pr. _ It is not _my_ story, you know, Cronus; it is Homer's and
Hesiod's; I might say, only I don't quite like to, that it is the
belief of the generality.
_Cro. _ That conceited shepherd[11]? you do not suppose he knew anything
worth knowing about me? Why, think. Is a man conceivable--let alone a
God--who would devour his own children? --wittingly, I mean; of course
he might be a Thyestes and have a wicked brother; that is different.
However, even granting that, I ask you whether he could help knowing he
had a stone in his mouth instead of a baby; I envy him his teeth, that
is all. The fact is, there was no war, and Zeus did not depose me; I
voluntarily abdicated and retired from the cares of office. That I am
not in fetters or in Tartarus you can see for yourself, or you must be
as blind as Homer.
_Pr. _ But what possessed you to abdicate?
_Cro. _ Well, the long and short of it is, as I grew old and gouty--that
last, by the way, accounts for the fetters of the story--I found the
men of these latter days getting out of hand; I had to be for ever
running up and down swinging the thunderbolt and blasting perjurers,
temple-robbers, oppressors; I could get no peace; younger blood was
wanted. So I had the happy thought of abdicating in Zeus's favour.
Independently of that, I thought it a good thing to divide up my
authority--I had sons to take it on--and to have a pleasant easy
time, free of all the petition business and the embarrassment of
contradictory prayers, no thundering or lightening to do, no lamentable
necessity for sending discharges of hail. None of that now; I am on the
shelf, and I like it, sipping neat nectar and talking over old times
with Iapetus and the others that were boys with me. And He is king,
and has troubles by the thousand. But it occurred to me to reserve
these few days for the employments I have mentioned; during them I
resume my authority, that men may remember what life was like in my
days, when all things grew without sowing or ploughing of theirs--no
ears of corn, but loaves complete and meat ready cooked--, when wine
flowed in rivers, and there were fountains of milk and honey; all men
were good and all men were gold. Such is the purpose of this my brief
reign; therefore the merry noise on every side, the song and the games;
therefore the slave and the free as one. When I was king, slavery was
not.
_Pr. _ Dear me, now! and I accounted for your kindness to slaves and
prisoners from the story again; I thought that, as you were a slave
yourself, you were paying slaves a compliment in memory of your own
fetters.
_Cro. _ Cease your ribald jests.
_Pr. _ Quite so; I will. But here is another question, please.
Used
mortals to play draughts in your time?
_Cro. _ Surely; but not for hundreds or thousands of pounds like you;
nuts were their highest stake; a man might lose without a sigh or a
tear, when losing could not mean starvation.
_Pr. _ Wise men! though, as they were solid gold themselves, they were
out of temptation. It occurred to me when you mentioned that--suppose
any one were to import one of your solid gold men into our age and
exhibit him, what sort of a reception would the poor thing get? They
would tear him to pieces, not a doubt of it. I see them rushing at him
like the Maenads at Pentheus, the Thracian women at Orpheus, or his
hounds at Actaeon, trying which could get the biggest bit of him; even
in the holidays they do not forget their avarice; most of them regard
the holy season as a sort of harvest. In which persuasion some of them
loot their friends' tables, others complain, quite unreasonably, of
you, or smash their innocent dice in revenge for losses due to their
own folly.
But tell me this, now: as you are such a delicate old deity, why pick
out the most disagreeable time, when all is wrapt in snow, and the
north wind blows, everything is hard frozen, trees dry and bare and
leafless, meadows have lost their flowery beauty, and men are hunched
up cowering over the fire like so many octogenarians,--why this season
of all others for your festival? It is no time for the old or the
luxurious.
_Cro. _ Fellow, your questions are many, and no good substitute for the
flowing bowl. You have filched a good portion of my carnival with your
impertinent philosophizings. Let them go, and we will make merry and
clap our hands and take our holiday licence, play draughts for nuts in
the good old way, elect our kings and do them fealty. I am minded to
verify the saw, that old age is second childhood.
_Pr. _ Now dry be his cup when he thirsts, to whom such words come
amiss! Cronus, a bowl with you! 'tis enough that you have made answer
to my former questions. By the way, I think of reducing our little
interview to writing, my questions and your so affable answers, for
submission to those friends whose discretion may be trusted.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] See _Saturnalia_ in Notes.
[11] Hesiod.
CRONOSOLON
_The words of Cronosolon, priest and prophet of Cronus, and holiday
lawgiver. _
The regulations to be observed by the poor I have sent expressly to
them in another scroll, and am well assured that they will abide by
the same, failing which, they will be obnoxious to the heavy penalties
enacted against the disobedient. And you, ye rich, see to it that ye
transgress not nor disregard the instructions following. Be it known to
him that shall so do, that he scorneth not me the lawgiver, but Cronus'
self, who hath appeared, in no dream, but these two days gone to my
waking senses, and appointed me to give holiday laws. No bondsman was
he, nor foul to look upon, as painters have limned him after poets'
foolish tales. His sickle was indeed full sharp; but he was cheerful
of countenance, strong of limb, and royally arrayed. Such was his
semblance; and his words, wherein too was divinity, it is fitting you
hear.
He beheld me pacing downcast, meditative, and straightway knew--as
how should a God not know? --the cause of my sorrow, and how I was
ill content with poverty and with the unseasonable thinness of my
raiment. For there was frost and north wind and ice and snow, and I
but ill fenced against them. The feast was moreover at hand, and I
might see others making ready for sacrifice and good cheer, but for me
things looked not that way. He came upon me from behind and touched
and thrilled my ear, as is the manner of his approach, and spake: 'O
Cronosolon, wherefore this troubled mien? ' 'Is there not a cause,
lord,' I said, 'when I look on pestilent loathly fellows passing rich,
engrossing all luxury, but I and many another skilled in liberal
arts have want and trouble to our bed-fellows? And thou, even thou,
lord, wilt not say it shall not be, nor order things anew and make us
equal. ' 'In common life,' then said he, ''tis no light matter to change
the lots that Clotho and her sister Fates have laid upon you; but as
touching the feast, I will set right your poverty; and let the settling
be after this manner. Go, O Cronosolon, indite me certain laws for
observance in the feast days, that the rich feast not by themselves,
but impart of their good things to you. ' Then said I, 'I know not how. '
'But I,' quoth he, 'will teach you. ' And therewith he began and taught
me. And when I was perfect, 'And certify them,' he said, 'that if they
do not hereafter, this sharp sickle that I bear is no toy; 'twere odd
if I could maim therewith Uranus my father, but not do as much for the
rich that transgress my laws; they shall be fitted to serve the Mother
of the Gods with alms-box and pipe and timbrel. ' Thus he threatened;
wherefore ye will do well to observe his decrees.
FIRST TABLE OF THE LAWS
All business, be it public or private, is forbidden during the feast
days, save such as tends to sport and solace and delight. Let none
follow their avocations saving cooks and bakers.
All men shall be equal, slave and free, rich and poor, one with another.
Anger, resentment, threats, are contrary to law.
During the feast days, no man shall be called to account of his
stewardship.
No man shall in these days count his money nor inspect his wardrobe,
nor make an inventory.
Athletic training shall cease.
No discourse shall be either composed or delivered, except it be witty
and lusty, conducing to mirth and jollity.
SECOND TABLE OF THE LAWS
In good time against the feast every rich man shall inscribe in a
table-book the names of his several friends, and shall provide money
to a tithe of his yearly incomings, together with the superfluity of
his raiment, and such ware as is too coarse for his own service, and a
goodly quantity of silver vessels. These shall be all in readiness.
On the eve of the feast the rich shall hold a purification, and drive
forth from their houses parsimony and avarice and covetousness and
all other such leanings that dwell with the most of them. And their
houses being purged they shall make offering to Zeus the Enricher, and
to Hermes the Giver, and to Apollo the Generous. And at afternoon the
table-book of their friends shall be read to them.
Then shall they with their own hands allot to each friend his fitting
share, and send it before set of sun.
And the carriers shall be not more than three or four, the trustiest of
a man's servants, and well on in years. And let him write in a letter
what is the gift, and its amount, that the carriers be not suspect to
giver or receiver. And the said servants shall drink one cup each man,
and depart, and ask no more.
To such as have culture let all be sent in double measure; it is
fitting that they have two portions.
The message that goeth with a gift shall be modest and brief; let no
man humble his friend, nor commend his own gift.
Rich shall not send gifts to rich, nor entertain his peer at the feast.
Of the things made ready for sending, none shall be reserved; let no
man give and un-give.
He that by absence missed his share of yester-year shall now receive
that too.
Let the rich discharge debts for their friends that are poor, and their
rent if they owe and cannot pay it.
Let it be their care above all to know in time the needs of every man.
The receiver for his part should be not over-curious, but account great
whatsoever is sent him. Yet are a flask of wine, a hare, or a fat fowl,
not to be held sufficient gifts; rather they bring the feast into
mockery. For the poor man's return gift, if he have learning, let it be
an ancient book, but of good omen and festive humour, or a writing of
his own after his ability; and the rich man shall receive the same with
a glad countenance, and take and read it forthwith; if he reject or
fling it aside, be it known to him that he hath incurred that penalty
of the sickle, though he himself hath sent all he should. For the
unlearned, let him send a garland or grains of frankincense.
If a poor man send, to one that is rich, raiment or silver or gold
beyond his means, the gift shall be impounded and sold, and the price
thereof cast into the treasury of Cronus; and on the morrow the poor
man shall receive from the rich stripes upon his hands with a rod not
less than twelve score and ten.
LAWS OF THE BOARD
The bath hour shall be noon, and before it nuts and draughts.
Every man shall take place as chance may direct; dignities and birth
and wealth shall give no precedence.
All shall be served with the same wine; the rich host shall not say,
For my colic, or for my megrims, I must drink the better.
Every man's portion of meat shall be alike. The attendants shall favour
none, nor yet in their serving shall they be deaf to any, nor pass any
by before his pleasure be known. They shall not set great portions
before him, and small before him, nor give this one a dainty and that
one refuse, but all shall be equal.
Let the butler have a quick eye and ear for all from his point of
vantage, and heed his master least. And be the cups large or small at
choice.
It shall be any man's right to call a health; and let all drink to all
if they will, when the host has set the wine a-going. But no man shall
be bound to drink, if he be no strong toper.
It shall not be free to any who will to bring an unpractised dancer or
musician to the dinner.
Let the limit to jesting be, that the feelings of none be wounded.
The stake at draughts shall be nuts alone; if any play for money, he
shall fast on the morrow.
When the rich man shall feast his slaves, let his friends serve with
him.
These laws every rich man shall engrave on a brazen pillar and set them
in the centre of his hall and there read them. And be it known that, so
long as that pillar stands, neither famine nor sickness nor fire nor
any mischance shall come upon the house. But if it be removed--which
God avert! --then evil shall be that house's doom.
H.
SATURNALIAN LETTERS
I
_I to Cronus, Greeting. _
I have written to you before telling you of my condition, how poverty
was likely to exclude me from the festival you have proclaimed. I
remember observing how unreasonable it was that some of us should be
in the lap of wealth and luxury, and never give a share of their good
things to the poor, while others are dying of hunger with your holy
season just upon them. But as you did not answer, I thought I might as
well refresh your memory. Dear good Cronus, you ought really to remove
this inequality and pool all the good things before telling us to make
merry. The world is peopled with camels and ants now, nothing between
the two. Or, to put it another way, kindly imagine an actor, with one
foot mounted on the tragic stilt and the other bare; if he walks like
that, he must be a giant or a dwarf according to the leg he stands on;
our lives are about as equal as his heights. Those who are taken on by
manager Fortune and supplied with stilts come the hero over us, while
the rest pad it on the ground, though you may take my word for it we
could rant and stalk with the best of them if we were given the same
chance.
Now the poets inform me that in the old days when you were king it
was otherwise with men; earth bestowed her gifts upon them unsown and
unploughed, every man's table was spread automatically, rivers ran wine
and milk and honey. Most wonderful of all, the men themselves were
gold, and poverty never came near them. As for us, we can hardly pass
for lead; some yet meaner material must be found. In the sweat of our
face the most of us eat bread. Poverty, distress, and helplessness,
sighs and lamentations and pinings for what is not, such is the staple
of man's life, the poor man's at least. All which, believe me, would be
much less painful to us, if there were not the felicity of the rich to
emphasize it. They have their chests of gold and silver, their stored
wardrobes, their slaves and carriages and house property and farms,
and, not content with keeping to themselves their superfluity in all
these, they will scarce fling a glance to the generality of us.
Ah, Cronus, there is the sting that rankles beyond endurance--that one
should loll on cloth of finest purple, overload his stomach with all
delicacies, and keep perpetual feast with guests to wish him joy, while
I and my like dream over the problematic acquisition of a sixpence to
provide us a loaf white or brown, and send us to bed with a smack of
cress or thyme or onion in our mouths. Now, good Cronus, either reform
this altogether and feed us alike, or at the least induce the rich
not to enjoy their good things alone; from their bushels of gold let
them scatter a poor pint among us; the raiment that they would never
feel the loss of though the moth were to consume it utterly, seeing
that in any case it must perish by mere lapse of time, let them devote
to covering our nakedness rather than to propagating mildew in their
chests and drawers.
Further let them entertain us by fours and fives, and not as they now
do, but more on principles of equality; let us all share alike. The way
now is for one to gorge himself on some dainty, keeping the servant
waiting about him till he is pleased to have done; but when it reaches
us, as we are in the act of helping ourselves it is whisked off, and
we have but that fleeting glimpse of the entrée or fag-end of a sweet.
Or in comes a sucking-pig; half of it, including the head, falls to
the host; the rest of us share the bones, slightly disguised. And pray
charge the butlers not to make us call unto seven times, but bring us
our wine when we ask for it first; and let it be a full-sized cup and
a bumper, as it is for their masters. And the same wine, please, for
every one at table; where is the legal authority for my host's growing
mellow on the choicest bouquet while my stomach is turned with mere
must?
These things if you correct and reform, you will have made life life,
and your feast a feast. If not, we will leave the feasting to them,
and just kneel down and pray that as they come from the bath the slave
may knock down and spill their wine, the cook smoke their sauce and
absent-mindedly pour the pea-soup over the caviare, the dog steal
in while the scullions are busy and make away with the whole of the
sausage and most of the pastry. Boar and buck and sucking-pigs, may
they rival in their roasting Homer's oxen of the Sun! only let them
not confine themselves to crawling[12], but jump up and make off to
the mountains with their spits sticking in them! and may the fat fowls,
all plucked and trussed, fly far away and rob them of their unsociable
delights!
But we can touch them more closely than that. May Indian gold-ants[13]
come by night, unearth their hoards and convey them to their own
state treasury! May their wardrobe-keepers be negligent, and our good
friends the mice make sieve-work of their raiment, fit for nothing but
tunny-nets! May every pretty curled minion, every Hyacinth and Achilles
and Narcissus they keep, turn bald as he hands the cup! let his hair
fall off and his chin grow bristly, till he is like the peak-bearded
fellows on the comic stage, hairy and prickly on cheek and temple, and
on the top smooth and bare! These are specimens of the petitions we
will send up, if they will not moderate their selfishness, acknowledge
themselves trustees for the public, and let us have our fair share.
H.
II
_Cronus to his well-beloved me, Greeting. _
My good man, why this absurdity of writing to me about the state of
the world, and advising redistribution of property? It is none of my
business; the present ruler must see to that. It is an odd thing you
should be the only person unaware that I have long abdicated; my sons
now administer various departments, of which the one that concerns you
is mainly in the hands of Zeus; my own charge is confined to draughts
and merry-making, song and good cheer, and that for one week only.
As for the weightier matters you speak of, removal of inequalities
and reducing of all men to one level of poverty or riches, Zeus must
do your business for you. On the other hand, if any man is wronged
or defrauded of his holiday privileges, that is a matter within my
competence; and I am writing to the rich on the subject of dinners, and
that pint of gold, and the raiment, directing them to send you what the
season requires. The poor are reasonable there; it is right and proper
for the rich to do these things, unless it turns out that they have
good reasons to the contrary.
Speaking generally, however, I must tell you that you are all in error;
it is quite a misconception to imagine the rich in perfect bliss; they
have no monopoly of life's pleasures because they can eat expensive
food, drink too much good wine, revel in beauty, and go in soft
raiment. You have no idea of how it works out. The resulting anxieties
are very considerable. A ceaseless watch must be kept, or stewards
will be lazy and dishonest, wine go sour, and grain be weeviled;
the burglar will be off with the rich man's plate; agitators will
persuade the people that he is meditating a _coup d'état_. And these
are but a minute fraction of their troubles; if you could know their
apprehensions and cares, you would think riches a thing to be avoided
at all costs.
Why, look at me; if wealth and dominion were good things, do you
suppose I should have been fool enough to relinquish them, make room
for others, and sit down like a common man content with a subordinate
position? No, it was because I knew all the conditions the rich and
powerful cannot escape that I had the sense to abdicate.
You made a great fuss in your letter about _their_ gorging on boar's
head and pastry while _your_ festival consists of a mouthful of cress
or thyme or onion. Now, what are the facts? As to the immediate
sensation, on the palate, there is little to choose between the two
diets--not much to complain of in either; but with the after effects
it is quite otherwise. _You_ get up next morning without either
the headache the rich man's wine leaves behind, or the disgusting
queasiness that results from his surfeit of food. To these effects he
adds those of nights given to lust and debauchery, and as likely as not
reaps the fruit of his luxury in consumption, pneumonia, or dropsy. It
is quite a difficult matter to find a rich man who is not deathly pale;
most of them by the time they are old men use eight legs belonging
to other people instead of their own two; they are gold without and
rags within, like the stage hero's robes. No fish dinners for you, I
admit; you hardly know what fish tastes like; but then observe, no
gout or pneumonia either, nor other ailments due to other excesses.
Apart from that, though, the rich themselves do not enjoy their daily
over-indulgence in these things; you may see them as eager, and more,
for a dinner of herbs as ever you are for game.
I say nothing of their other vexations--one has a disreputable son,
another a wife who prefers his slave to himself, another realizes
that his minion yields to necessity what he would not to affection;
there are numberless things, in fact, that you know nothing about; you
only see their gold and purple, or catch sight of them behind their
high-steppers, and open your mouths and abase yourselves before them.
If you left them severely alone, if you did not turn to stare at their
silver-plated carriages, if you did not while they were talking eye
their emerald rings, or finger their clothes and admire the fineness of
the texture, if you let them keep their riches to themselves, in short,
I can assure you they would seek you out and implore the favour of
your company; you see, they _must_ show you their couches and tables
and goblets, the sole good of which is in the being known to possess
them.
You will find that most of their acquisitions are made for you; they
are not for their own use, but for your astonishment. I am one that
knows both lives, and I write this for your consolation. You should
keep the feast with the thought in your minds that both parties will
soon leave this earthly scene, they resigning their wealth, and you
your poverty. However, I will write to them as I promised, and am
confident that they will not disregard what I say.
H.
III
_Cronus to the Rich, Greeting. _
I lately received a letter from the poor, complaining that you give
them no share of your prosperity. They petitioned me in general terms
to institute community of goods and let each have his part: it was only
right that equality should be established, instead of one's having
a superfluity while another was cut off from pleasure altogether.
I told them that had better be left to Zeus; but their particular
festival grievances I considered to belong to my own jurisdiction, and
so I undertook to write to you. These demands of theirs are moderate
enough, it seems to me. How can we possibly keep the feast (they ask),
when we are numb with frost and pinched with hunger? if I meant them
to participate, I must compel you to bestow on them any clothes that
you do not require, or find too heavy for your own use, and also to
vouchsafe them just a slight sprinkling of gold. If you do this, they
engage not to dispute your right to your property any further in the
court of Zeus. Otherwise they will demand redistribution the next
time he takes his seat upon the bench. Well, this is no heavy call,
considering the vast property on the possession of which I congratulate
you.
They also requested me to mention the subject of dinners; you were to
ask them to dinner, instead of closing your doors and living daintily
by yourselves. When you do entertain a few of them at long intervals,
they say you make it rather a humiliation than an enjoyment; everything
is done to degrade them--that monstrous piece of snobbishness, for
instance, the giving different people different wines. It is really
a little discreditable to them that they do not get up and walk
out in such a case, leaving you in sole possession. But that is
not all; they tell me there is not _enough_ to drink either; your
butlers' ears are as impervious as those of Odysseus's crew. Other
vulgarities I can hardly bring myself to name. The helpings and the
waiters are complained of; the latter linger about you till you are
full to repletion, but post by your poor guests at a run--with other
meannesses hardly conceivable in the house of a gentleman. For mirth
and good-fellowship it is essential that all the company be on the same
footing; if your carver does not secure equality, better not have one,
but a general scramble.
It rests with you to obviate these complaints and secure honour and
affection; a liberality that costs you nothing appreciable will impress
itself permanently by its timeliness on the memory of recipients.
Why, your cities would not be habitable, if you had not poor fellow
citizens to make their numberless contributions to your well-being;
you would have no admirers of your wealth if you lived alone with it
in the obscurity of isolation. Let there be plenty to see it and to
marvel at your silver and your exquisite tables; let them drink to your
health, and as they drink examine the goblet, feel and guess at its
weight, enjoy its storied workmanship enhanced by and enhancing the
preciousness of the material. So you may not only gain a reputation for
goodness and geniality, but also escape envy; that is a feeling not
directed against people who let others participate in their prosperity
to a reasonable extent; every one prays that they may live long to
enjoy it. Your present practice results in an unsatisfying life, with
none to see your happiness, but plenty to grudge you your wealth.
It is surely not so agreeable to gorge yourself alone, like a lion
or an old wolf that has deserted the pack, as to have the company of
well-bred people who do their best to make things pleasant. In the
first place they banish dull silence from your table, and are ready
with a good story, a harmless jest, or some other contribution to
entertainment; that is the way to please the Gods of wine and love
and beauty. And secondly they win you love by spreading abroad next
morning your hospitable fame. These are things that would be cheap at a
considerable price.
For I put it to you whether, if blindness were a regular concomitant
of poverty (fancy is free), you would be indifferent to the want of
any one to impress with your purple clothes and attendant crowds
and massive rings. I will not dwell on the certainty that plots and
ill-feeling will be excited against you by your exclusiveness; suffice
it to say that the curses they threaten to imprecate upon you are
positively horrible; God forbid they should really be driven to it! You
would never taste sausage or pastry more; if the dog's depredations
stopped short of completeness, you would still find a fishy flavour
in your soup, the boar and the buck would effect an escape to the
mountains from off the very roasting-jack, and your birds (no matter
for their being plucked) would be off with a whiz and a whirr to the
poor men's tables. Worst of all, your pretty cup-bearers would turn
bald in a twinkling--the wine, by the way, having previously all been
spilt. I now leave you to make up your minds on the course that the
festival proprieties and your own safety recommend; these people are
extremely poor; a little relief will gain you friends worth having at a
trifling cost.
H.
IV
_The Rich to Cronus, Greeting. _
Do you really suppose, Sire, that these letters of the poor have gone
exclusively to _your_ address? Zeus is quite deaf with their clamour,
their appeals for redistribution, their complaints of Destiny for her
unfairness and of us for refusing them relief. But Zeus is Zeus; _he_
knows where the fault lies, and consequently pays them very little
attention. However, as the authority is at present with you, to you we
will address our defence. Having before our eyes all that you have laid
down on the beauty of assisting out of our abundance those who are in
want, and the delight of associating and making merry with the poor, we
adopted the principle of treating them on such equal terms that a guest
could not possibly have anything to complain of.
On their side, they started with professions of wanting very little
indeed; but that was only the thin edge of the wedge. Now, if their
demands are not instantly and literally satisfied, there is bad temper
and offence and talk; their tales may be as false as they will, every
one believes them: they have been there; they must know! Our only
choice was between a refusal that meant detestation, and a total
surrender that meant speedy ruin and transfer to the begging class for
ourselves.
But the worst is to come. At table that filling of the stomach (of
which we have by no means the monopoly) does not so completely occupy
them but that, when they have drunk a drop too much, they find time
for familiarities with the attendants or saucy compliments to the
ladies. Then, after being ill at our tables, they go home, and next day
reproach us with the hunger and thirst they feelingly describe.
harsh. Manner: offensive.
_First Master. _ Why, what is all this about? His name used to be
Cantharus when he was with me. He had long hair, and no beard, and was
apprenticed to my trade; I am a fuller, and he was in my shop, dressing
cloth.
_Phi. _ Yes, it is the same; but he has dressed to some purpose this
time, and has become a philosopher.
_First Master. _ Cantharus a philosopher! I like that. And where do I
come in?
_Second and Third Masters. _ Oh well, we shall get them all now. This
lady knows all about them, it seems.
_Phi. _ Heracles, who is this comely person with a lyre?
_Hera. _ It is Orpheus. I was on the Argo with him. He was the best of
boatswains; it was quite a pleasure to row to his singing. Welcome, my
musical friend: you have not forgotten Heracles, I hope?
_Or. _ And welcome to all of you, Philosophy, Heracles, Hermes. I should
like my reward, please: I can lay my finger on your man.
_Her. _ Then show us the way. It is useless, of course, to offer gold to
the gifted son of Calliope?
_Or. _ Oh, quite. --I will show you the house, but not the man. His
tongue might avenge him; scurrility is his strong point.
_Her. _ Lead on.
_Or. _ It is this house close by. And now I shall leave you; I have no
wish to set eyes on him.
_Her. _ Hush! Was that a woman's voice, reciting Homer?
_Phi. _ It was. Let us listen.
_Innkeeper's Wife. _ More than the gates of Hell I hate that man
Who, loving gold, cloaketh his love with lies.
_Her. _ At that rate, madam, you will have to quarrel with Cantharus:
He with his kindly host hath dealt amiss.
_Innkeeper. _ That's me. I took him in, and he ran away with my wife.
_Innk. Wife. _ Wine-witted knave, deer-hearted and dog-eyed,
Thersites, babbler loose, that nought availest
In council, nought in arms; most valiant daw,
That with thine aimless chatter chidest kings,--
_First Master. _ My rascal to a T.
_Innk. Wife. _ The dog in thee--for thou art dog and goat
And lion--doth a blasting fury breathe.
_Innkeeper. _ Wife, wife! the dogs have been too many for you; ay, and
for your virtue, so men say.
_Her. _ Hope for the best; some little Cerberus or Geryon shall call you
father, and Heracles have employment again. --Ah, no need to knock: here
they come.
_First Master. _ Ha, Cantharus, have I got you? What, nothing to say for
yourself? Let us see what you have in that wallet; beans, no doubt, or
a crust of bread.
_Her. _ Bread, indeed! Gold, a purseful of it!
_Hera. _ That need not surprise you. In Greece, you see, he was a
Cynic, but here he is all for golden Chrysippus. Next you will see him
dangling, Cleanthes-like[9], by his beard, and serve the dirty fellow
right.
_Second Master. _ Ha, you rascal there, am I mistaken, or are you my
lost Lecythio? Lecythio it is. What a figure! Lecythio a philosopher!
I'll believe anything after this.
_Her. _ Does none of you know anything about this other?
_Third Master. _ Oh yes, he is mine; but he may go hang for me.
_Her. _ And why is that?
_Third Master. _ Ah, he's a sadly leaky vessel, is Rosolio, as we used
to call him.
_Her. _ Gracious Heracles! did you hear that? Rosolio with wallet and
stick! --Friend, here is your wife again.
_Innkeeper. _ Thank you for nothing. I'll have no woman brought to bed
of an old book in my house.
_Her. _ How am I to understand that?
_Innkeeper. _ Why, the Three-headed Dog is a book, master?
_Her. _ Ay, and so was the Man with the Three Hats, for that matter.
_Masters. _ We leave the rest to you, sir.
_Her. _ This is my judgement. Let the woman return beneath her husband's
roof, or many-headed monsters will come of it. These two truant
sparks I hand over to their owners: let them follow their trades as
heretofore; Lecythio wash clothes, and Rosolio patch them;--not,
however, before his back has felt the mallow-stalk. And for Cantharus,
first let the men of pitch take him, and plaster him without mercy;
and be their pitch the vilest procurable. Then let him be led forth to
stand upon the snowy slopes of Haemus, naked and fettered.
_Can. _ Mercy! have mercy on me! Ah me! I am undone!
_First Master. _ So tragic? Come, follow me to the plasterers; and off
with that lion's-skin, lest you be taken for other than an ass.
F.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus.
[8] _Ctesis_ is Greek for 'gain. '
[9] See _Cleanthes_ in Notes.
SATURNALIA
_Cronus. His Priest_
_Pr. _ Cronus, you are in authority just now, I understand; to you our
sacrifices and ceremonies are directed; now, what can I make surest of
getting if I ask it of you at this holy season?
_Cro. _ You had better make up your own mind what to pray for, unless
you expect your ruler to be a _clairvoyant_ and know what you would
like to ask. Then, I will do my best not to disappoint you.
_Pr. _ Oh, I have done that long ago. No originality about it; the
usual thing, please,--wealth, plenty of gold, landed proprietorship, a
train of slaves, gay soft raiment, silver, ivory, in fact everything
that is worth anything. Best of Cronuses, give me some of these; your
priest should profit by your rule, and not be the one man who has to go
without all his life.
_Cro. _ Of course! _ultra vires_; these are not mine to give. So do not
sulk at being refused; ask Zeus for them; he will be in authority again
soon enough. Mine is a limited monarchy, you see. To begin with, it
only lasts a week; that over, I am a private person, just a man in the
street. Secondly, during my week the serious is barred; no business
allowed. Drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing
of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous
hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water,--such are
the functions over which I preside. But the great things, wealth and
gold and such, Zeus distributes as he will.
_Pr. _ He is not very free with them, though, Cronus. I am tired of
asking for them, as I do at the top of my voice. He never listens; he
shakes his aegis, gets the thunderbolt ready for action, puts on a
stern look, and scares you out of worrying him. He does consent now
and then, and make a man rich; but his selection is most casual; he
will pass over the good and sensible, and set fools and knaves up to
the lips in wealth, gaol-birds or debauchees most of them. But I want
to know what are the things _you_ can do.
_Cro. _ Oh, they are not to be sneezed at; it does not come to so very
little, if you make allowance for my general limitations. Perhaps you
think it a trifle always to win at dice, and be able to count on the
sice when the ace is the best the others can throw? Anyhow, there are
plenty who get as much as they can eat just because the die likes them
and does what it can for them. Others you may see naked, swimming for
their lives; and what was the reef that wrecked them, pray? that little
die. Or again, to enjoy your wine, to sing the best song at table, at
the slaves' feast to see the other waiters[1] ducked for incompetence,
while you are acclaimed victor and carry off the sausage prize,--is all
that nothing? Or you find yourself absolute monarch by favour of the
knucklebone, can have no ridiculous commands[10] laid on you, and can
lay them on the rest: one must shout out a libel on himself, another
dance naked, or pick up the flute-girl and carry her thrice round the
house; how is that for a sample of my open-handedness? If you complain
that the sovereignty is not real nor lasting, that is unreasonable of
you; you see that I, the giver of it, have a short-lived tenure myself.
Well, anything that is in my power--draughts, monarchy, song, and the
rest I have mentioned--you can ask, and welcome; _I_ will not scare you
with aegis and thunderbolt.
_Pr. _ Most kind Titan, such gifts I require not of you. Give me the
answer that was my first desire, and then count yourself to have repaid
my sacrifice sufficiently; you shall have my receipt in full.
_Cro. _ Put your question. An answer you shall have, if my knowledge is
equal to it.
_Pr. _ First, then, is the common story true? used you to eat the
children Rhea bore you? and did she steal away Zeus, and give you
a stone to swallow for a baby? did he when he grew to manhood make
victorious war upon you and drive you from your kingdom, bind and cast
you into Tartarus, you and all the powers that ranged themselves with
you?
_Cro. _ Fellow, were it any but this festive season, when 'tis lawful to
be drunken, and slaves have licence to revile their lords, the reward
for thy question, for this thy rudeness to a grey-haired aged God, had
been the knowledge that wrath is yet permitted me.
_Pr. _ It is not _my_ story, you know, Cronus; it is Homer's and
Hesiod's; I might say, only I don't quite like to, that it is the
belief of the generality.
_Cro. _ That conceited shepherd[11]? you do not suppose he knew anything
worth knowing about me? Why, think. Is a man conceivable--let alone a
God--who would devour his own children? --wittingly, I mean; of course
he might be a Thyestes and have a wicked brother; that is different.
However, even granting that, I ask you whether he could help knowing he
had a stone in his mouth instead of a baby; I envy him his teeth, that
is all. The fact is, there was no war, and Zeus did not depose me; I
voluntarily abdicated and retired from the cares of office. That I am
not in fetters or in Tartarus you can see for yourself, or you must be
as blind as Homer.
_Pr. _ But what possessed you to abdicate?
_Cro. _ Well, the long and short of it is, as I grew old and gouty--that
last, by the way, accounts for the fetters of the story--I found the
men of these latter days getting out of hand; I had to be for ever
running up and down swinging the thunderbolt and blasting perjurers,
temple-robbers, oppressors; I could get no peace; younger blood was
wanted. So I had the happy thought of abdicating in Zeus's favour.
Independently of that, I thought it a good thing to divide up my
authority--I had sons to take it on--and to have a pleasant easy
time, free of all the petition business and the embarrassment of
contradictory prayers, no thundering or lightening to do, no lamentable
necessity for sending discharges of hail. None of that now; I am on the
shelf, and I like it, sipping neat nectar and talking over old times
with Iapetus and the others that were boys with me. And He is king,
and has troubles by the thousand. But it occurred to me to reserve
these few days for the employments I have mentioned; during them I
resume my authority, that men may remember what life was like in my
days, when all things grew without sowing or ploughing of theirs--no
ears of corn, but loaves complete and meat ready cooked--, when wine
flowed in rivers, and there were fountains of milk and honey; all men
were good and all men were gold. Such is the purpose of this my brief
reign; therefore the merry noise on every side, the song and the games;
therefore the slave and the free as one. When I was king, slavery was
not.
_Pr. _ Dear me, now! and I accounted for your kindness to slaves and
prisoners from the story again; I thought that, as you were a slave
yourself, you were paying slaves a compliment in memory of your own
fetters.
_Cro. _ Cease your ribald jests.
_Pr. _ Quite so; I will. But here is another question, please.
Used
mortals to play draughts in your time?
_Cro. _ Surely; but not for hundreds or thousands of pounds like you;
nuts were their highest stake; a man might lose without a sigh or a
tear, when losing could not mean starvation.
_Pr. _ Wise men! though, as they were solid gold themselves, they were
out of temptation. It occurred to me when you mentioned that--suppose
any one were to import one of your solid gold men into our age and
exhibit him, what sort of a reception would the poor thing get? They
would tear him to pieces, not a doubt of it. I see them rushing at him
like the Maenads at Pentheus, the Thracian women at Orpheus, or his
hounds at Actaeon, trying which could get the biggest bit of him; even
in the holidays they do not forget their avarice; most of them regard
the holy season as a sort of harvest. In which persuasion some of them
loot their friends' tables, others complain, quite unreasonably, of
you, or smash their innocent dice in revenge for losses due to their
own folly.
But tell me this, now: as you are such a delicate old deity, why pick
out the most disagreeable time, when all is wrapt in snow, and the
north wind blows, everything is hard frozen, trees dry and bare and
leafless, meadows have lost their flowery beauty, and men are hunched
up cowering over the fire like so many octogenarians,--why this season
of all others for your festival? It is no time for the old or the
luxurious.
_Cro. _ Fellow, your questions are many, and no good substitute for the
flowing bowl. You have filched a good portion of my carnival with your
impertinent philosophizings. Let them go, and we will make merry and
clap our hands and take our holiday licence, play draughts for nuts in
the good old way, elect our kings and do them fealty. I am minded to
verify the saw, that old age is second childhood.
_Pr. _ Now dry be his cup when he thirsts, to whom such words come
amiss! Cronus, a bowl with you! 'tis enough that you have made answer
to my former questions. By the way, I think of reducing our little
interview to writing, my questions and your so affable answers, for
submission to those friends whose discretion may be trusted.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] See _Saturnalia_ in Notes.
[11] Hesiod.
CRONOSOLON
_The words of Cronosolon, priest and prophet of Cronus, and holiday
lawgiver. _
The regulations to be observed by the poor I have sent expressly to
them in another scroll, and am well assured that they will abide by
the same, failing which, they will be obnoxious to the heavy penalties
enacted against the disobedient. And you, ye rich, see to it that ye
transgress not nor disregard the instructions following. Be it known to
him that shall so do, that he scorneth not me the lawgiver, but Cronus'
self, who hath appeared, in no dream, but these two days gone to my
waking senses, and appointed me to give holiday laws. No bondsman was
he, nor foul to look upon, as painters have limned him after poets'
foolish tales. His sickle was indeed full sharp; but he was cheerful
of countenance, strong of limb, and royally arrayed. Such was his
semblance; and his words, wherein too was divinity, it is fitting you
hear.
He beheld me pacing downcast, meditative, and straightway knew--as
how should a God not know? --the cause of my sorrow, and how I was
ill content with poverty and with the unseasonable thinness of my
raiment. For there was frost and north wind and ice and snow, and I
but ill fenced against them. The feast was moreover at hand, and I
might see others making ready for sacrifice and good cheer, but for me
things looked not that way. He came upon me from behind and touched
and thrilled my ear, as is the manner of his approach, and spake: 'O
Cronosolon, wherefore this troubled mien? ' 'Is there not a cause,
lord,' I said, 'when I look on pestilent loathly fellows passing rich,
engrossing all luxury, but I and many another skilled in liberal
arts have want and trouble to our bed-fellows? And thou, even thou,
lord, wilt not say it shall not be, nor order things anew and make us
equal. ' 'In common life,' then said he, ''tis no light matter to change
the lots that Clotho and her sister Fates have laid upon you; but as
touching the feast, I will set right your poverty; and let the settling
be after this manner. Go, O Cronosolon, indite me certain laws for
observance in the feast days, that the rich feast not by themselves,
but impart of their good things to you. ' Then said I, 'I know not how. '
'But I,' quoth he, 'will teach you. ' And therewith he began and taught
me. And when I was perfect, 'And certify them,' he said, 'that if they
do not hereafter, this sharp sickle that I bear is no toy; 'twere odd
if I could maim therewith Uranus my father, but not do as much for the
rich that transgress my laws; they shall be fitted to serve the Mother
of the Gods with alms-box and pipe and timbrel. ' Thus he threatened;
wherefore ye will do well to observe his decrees.
FIRST TABLE OF THE LAWS
All business, be it public or private, is forbidden during the feast
days, save such as tends to sport and solace and delight. Let none
follow their avocations saving cooks and bakers.
All men shall be equal, slave and free, rich and poor, one with another.
Anger, resentment, threats, are contrary to law.
During the feast days, no man shall be called to account of his
stewardship.
No man shall in these days count his money nor inspect his wardrobe,
nor make an inventory.
Athletic training shall cease.
No discourse shall be either composed or delivered, except it be witty
and lusty, conducing to mirth and jollity.
SECOND TABLE OF THE LAWS
In good time against the feast every rich man shall inscribe in a
table-book the names of his several friends, and shall provide money
to a tithe of his yearly incomings, together with the superfluity of
his raiment, and such ware as is too coarse for his own service, and a
goodly quantity of silver vessels. These shall be all in readiness.
On the eve of the feast the rich shall hold a purification, and drive
forth from their houses parsimony and avarice and covetousness and
all other such leanings that dwell with the most of them. And their
houses being purged they shall make offering to Zeus the Enricher, and
to Hermes the Giver, and to Apollo the Generous. And at afternoon the
table-book of their friends shall be read to them.
Then shall they with their own hands allot to each friend his fitting
share, and send it before set of sun.
And the carriers shall be not more than three or four, the trustiest of
a man's servants, and well on in years. And let him write in a letter
what is the gift, and its amount, that the carriers be not suspect to
giver or receiver. And the said servants shall drink one cup each man,
and depart, and ask no more.
To such as have culture let all be sent in double measure; it is
fitting that they have two portions.
The message that goeth with a gift shall be modest and brief; let no
man humble his friend, nor commend his own gift.
Rich shall not send gifts to rich, nor entertain his peer at the feast.
Of the things made ready for sending, none shall be reserved; let no
man give and un-give.
He that by absence missed his share of yester-year shall now receive
that too.
Let the rich discharge debts for their friends that are poor, and their
rent if they owe and cannot pay it.
Let it be their care above all to know in time the needs of every man.
The receiver for his part should be not over-curious, but account great
whatsoever is sent him. Yet are a flask of wine, a hare, or a fat fowl,
not to be held sufficient gifts; rather they bring the feast into
mockery. For the poor man's return gift, if he have learning, let it be
an ancient book, but of good omen and festive humour, or a writing of
his own after his ability; and the rich man shall receive the same with
a glad countenance, and take and read it forthwith; if he reject or
fling it aside, be it known to him that he hath incurred that penalty
of the sickle, though he himself hath sent all he should. For the
unlearned, let him send a garland or grains of frankincense.
If a poor man send, to one that is rich, raiment or silver or gold
beyond his means, the gift shall be impounded and sold, and the price
thereof cast into the treasury of Cronus; and on the morrow the poor
man shall receive from the rich stripes upon his hands with a rod not
less than twelve score and ten.
LAWS OF THE BOARD
The bath hour shall be noon, and before it nuts and draughts.
Every man shall take place as chance may direct; dignities and birth
and wealth shall give no precedence.
All shall be served with the same wine; the rich host shall not say,
For my colic, or for my megrims, I must drink the better.
Every man's portion of meat shall be alike. The attendants shall favour
none, nor yet in their serving shall they be deaf to any, nor pass any
by before his pleasure be known. They shall not set great portions
before him, and small before him, nor give this one a dainty and that
one refuse, but all shall be equal.
Let the butler have a quick eye and ear for all from his point of
vantage, and heed his master least. And be the cups large or small at
choice.
It shall be any man's right to call a health; and let all drink to all
if they will, when the host has set the wine a-going. But no man shall
be bound to drink, if he be no strong toper.
It shall not be free to any who will to bring an unpractised dancer or
musician to the dinner.
Let the limit to jesting be, that the feelings of none be wounded.
The stake at draughts shall be nuts alone; if any play for money, he
shall fast on the morrow.
When the rich man shall feast his slaves, let his friends serve with
him.
These laws every rich man shall engrave on a brazen pillar and set them
in the centre of his hall and there read them. And be it known that, so
long as that pillar stands, neither famine nor sickness nor fire nor
any mischance shall come upon the house. But if it be removed--which
God avert! --then evil shall be that house's doom.
H.
SATURNALIAN LETTERS
I
_I to Cronus, Greeting. _
I have written to you before telling you of my condition, how poverty
was likely to exclude me from the festival you have proclaimed. I
remember observing how unreasonable it was that some of us should be
in the lap of wealth and luxury, and never give a share of their good
things to the poor, while others are dying of hunger with your holy
season just upon them. But as you did not answer, I thought I might as
well refresh your memory. Dear good Cronus, you ought really to remove
this inequality and pool all the good things before telling us to make
merry. The world is peopled with camels and ants now, nothing between
the two. Or, to put it another way, kindly imagine an actor, with one
foot mounted on the tragic stilt and the other bare; if he walks like
that, he must be a giant or a dwarf according to the leg he stands on;
our lives are about as equal as his heights. Those who are taken on by
manager Fortune and supplied with stilts come the hero over us, while
the rest pad it on the ground, though you may take my word for it we
could rant and stalk with the best of them if we were given the same
chance.
Now the poets inform me that in the old days when you were king it
was otherwise with men; earth bestowed her gifts upon them unsown and
unploughed, every man's table was spread automatically, rivers ran wine
and milk and honey. Most wonderful of all, the men themselves were
gold, and poverty never came near them. As for us, we can hardly pass
for lead; some yet meaner material must be found. In the sweat of our
face the most of us eat bread. Poverty, distress, and helplessness,
sighs and lamentations and pinings for what is not, such is the staple
of man's life, the poor man's at least. All which, believe me, would be
much less painful to us, if there were not the felicity of the rich to
emphasize it. They have their chests of gold and silver, their stored
wardrobes, their slaves and carriages and house property and farms,
and, not content with keeping to themselves their superfluity in all
these, they will scarce fling a glance to the generality of us.
Ah, Cronus, there is the sting that rankles beyond endurance--that one
should loll on cloth of finest purple, overload his stomach with all
delicacies, and keep perpetual feast with guests to wish him joy, while
I and my like dream over the problematic acquisition of a sixpence to
provide us a loaf white or brown, and send us to bed with a smack of
cress or thyme or onion in our mouths. Now, good Cronus, either reform
this altogether and feed us alike, or at the least induce the rich
not to enjoy their good things alone; from their bushels of gold let
them scatter a poor pint among us; the raiment that they would never
feel the loss of though the moth were to consume it utterly, seeing
that in any case it must perish by mere lapse of time, let them devote
to covering our nakedness rather than to propagating mildew in their
chests and drawers.
Further let them entertain us by fours and fives, and not as they now
do, but more on principles of equality; let us all share alike. The way
now is for one to gorge himself on some dainty, keeping the servant
waiting about him till he is pleased to have done; but when it reaches
us, as we are in the act of helping ourselves it is whisked off, and
we have but that fleeting glimpse of the entrée or fag-end of a sweet.
Or in comes a sucking-pig; half of it, including the head, falls to
the host; the rest of us share the bones, slightly disguised. And pray
charge the butlers not to make us call unto seven times, but bring us
our wine when we ask for it first; and let it be a full-sized cup and
a bumper, as it is for their masters. And the same wine, please, for
every one at table; where is the legal authority for my host's growing
mellow on the choicest bouquet while my stomach is turned with mere
must?
These things if you correct and reform, you will have made life life,
and your feast a feast. If not, we will leave the feasting to them,
and just kneel down and pray that as they come from the bath the slave
may knock down and spill their wine, the cook smoke their sauce and
absent-mindedly pour the pea-soup over the caviare, the dog steal
in while the scullions are busy and make away with the whole of the
sausage and most of the pastry. Boar and buck and sucking-pigs, may
they rival in their roasting Homer's oxen of the Sun! only let them
not confine themselves to crawling[12], but jump up and make off to
the mountains with their spits sticking in them! and may the fat fowls,
all plucked and trussed, fly far away and rob them of their unsociable
delights!
But we can touch them more closely than that. May Indian gold-ants[13]
come by night, unearth their hoards and convey them to their own
state treasury! May their wardrobe-keepers be negligent, and our good
friends the mice make sieve-work of their raiment, fit for nothing but
tunny-nets! May every pretty curled minion, every Hyacinth and Achilles
and Narcissus they keep, turn bald as he hands the cup! let his hair
fall off and his chin grow bristly, till he is like the peak-bearded
fellows on the comic stage, hairy and prickly on cheek and temple, and
on the top smooth and bare! These are specimens of the petitions we
will send up, if they will not moderate their selfishness, acknowledge
themselves trustees for the public, and let us have our fair share.
H.
II
_Cronus to his well-beloved me, Greeting. _
My good man, why this absurdity of writing to me about the state of
the world, and advising redistribution of property? It is none of my
business; the present ruler must see to that. It is an odd thing you
should be the only person unaware that I have long abdicated; my sons
now administer various departments, of which the one that concerns you
is mainly in the hands of Zeus; my own charge is confined to draughts
and merry-making, song and good cheer, and that for one week only.
As for the weightier matters you speak of, removal of inequalities
and reducing of all men to one level of poverty or riches, Zeus must
do your business for you. On the other hand, if any man is wronged
or defrauded of his holiday privileges, that is a matter within my
competence; and I am writing to the rich on the subject of dinners, and
that pint of gold, and the raiment, directing them to send you what the
season requires. The poor are reasonable there; it is right and proper
for the rich to do these things, unless it turns out that they have
good reasons to the contrary.
Speaking generally, however, I must tell you that you are all in error;
it is quite a misconception to imagine the rich in perfect bliss; they
have no monopoly of life's pleasures because they can eat expensive
food, drink too much good wine, revel in beauty, and go in soft
raiment. You have no idea of how it works out. The resulting anxieties
are very considerable. A ceaseless watch must be kept, or stewards
will be lazy and dishonest, wine go sour, and grain be weeviled;
the burglar will be off with the rich man's plate; agitators will
persuade the people that he is meditating a _coup d'état_. And these
are but a minute fraction of their troubles; if you could know their
apprehensions and cares, you would think riches a thing to be avoided
at all costs.
Why, look at me; if wealth and dominion were good things, do you
suppose I should have been fool enough to relinquish them, make room
for others, and sit down like a common man content with a subordinate
position? No, it was because I knew all the conditions the rich and
powerful cannot escape that I had the sense to abdicate.
You made a great fuss in your letter about _their_ gorging on boar's
head and pastry while _your_ festival consists of a mouthful of cress
or thyme or onion. Now, what are the facts? As to the immediate
sensation, on the palate, there is little to choose between the two
diets--not much to complain of in either; but with the after effects
it is quite otherwise. _You_ get up next morning without either
the headache the rich man's wine leaves behind, or the disgusting
queasiness that results from his surfeit of food. To these effects he
adds those of nights given to lust and debauchery, and as likely as not
reaps the fruit of his luxury in consumption, pneumonia, or dropsy. It
is quite a difficult matter to find a rich man who is not deathly pale;
most of them by the time they are old men use eight legs belonging
to other people instead of their own two; they are gold without and
rags within, like the stage hero's robes. No fish dinners for you, I
admit; you hardly know what fish tastes like; but then observe, no
gout or pneumonia either, nor other ailments due to other excesses.
Apart from that, though, the rich themselves do not enjoy their daily
over-indulgence in these things; you may see them as eager, and more,
for a dinner of herbs as ever you are for game.
I say nothing of their other vexations--one has a disreputable son,
another a wife who prefers his slave to himself, another realizes
that his minion yields to necessity what he would not to affection;
there are numberless things, in fact, that you know nothing about; you
only see their gold and purple, or catch sight of them behind their
high-steppers, and open your mouths and abase yourselves before them.
If you left them severely alone, if you did not turn to stare at their
silver-plated carriages, if you did not while they were talking eye
their emerald rings, or finger their clothes and admire the fineness of
the texture, if you let them keep their riches to themselves, in short,
I can assure you they would seek you out and implore the favour of
your company; you see, they _must_ show you their couches and tables
and goblets, the sole good of which is in the being known to possess
them.
You will find that most of their acquisitions are made for you; they
are not for their own use, but for your astonishment. I am one that
knows both lives, and I write this for your consolation. You should
keep the feast with the thought in your minds that both parties will
soon leave this earthly scene, they resigning their wealth, and you
your poverty. However, I will write to them as I promised, and am
confident that they will not disregard what I say.
H.
III
_Cronus to the Rich, Greeting. _
I lately received a letter from the poor, complaining that you give
them no share of your prosperity. They petitioned me in general terms
to institute community of goods and let each have his part: it was only
right that equality should be established, instead of one's having
a superfluity while another was cut off from pleasure altogether.
I told them that had better be left to Zeus; but their particular
festival grievances I considered to belong to my own jurisdiction, and
so I undertook to write to you. These demands of theirs are moderate
enough, it seems to me. How can we possibly keep the feast (they ask),
when we are numb with frost and pinched with hunger? if I meant them
to participate, I must compel you to bestow on them any clothes that
you do not require, or find too heavy for your own use, and also to
vouchsafe them just a slight sprinkling of gold. If you do this, they
engage not to dispute your right to your property any further in the
court of Zeus. Otherwise they will demand redistribution the next
time he takes his seat upon the bench. Well, this is no heavy call,
considering the vast property on the possession of which I congratulate
you.
They also requested me to mention the subject of dinners; you were to
ask them to dinner, instead of closing your doors and living daintily
by yourselves. When you do entertain a few of them at long intervals,
they say you make it rather a humiliation than an enjoyment; everything
is done to degrade them--that monstrous piece of snobbishness, for
instance, the giving different people different wines. It is really
a little discreditable to them that they do not get up and walk
out in such a case, leaving you in sole possession. But that is
not all; they tell me there is not _enough_ to drink either; your
butlers' ears are as impervious as those of Odysseus's crew. Other
vulgarities I can hardly bring myself to name. The helpings and the
waiters are complained of; the latter linger about you till you are
full to repletion, but post by your poor guests at a run--with other
meannesses hardly conceivable in the house of a gentleman. For mirth
and good-fellowship it is essential that all the company be on the same
footing; if your carver does not secure equality, better not have one,
but a general scramble.
It rests with you to obviate these complaints and secure honour and
affection; a liberality that costs you nothing appreciable will impress
itself permanently by its timeliness on the memory of recipients.
Why, your cities would not be habitable, if you had not poor fellow
citizens to make their numberless contributions to your well-being;
you would have no admirers of your wealth if you lived alone with it
in the obscurity of isolation. Let there be plenty to see it and to
marvel at your silver and your exquisite tables; let them drink to your
health, and as they drink examine the goblet, feel and guess at its
weight, enjoy its storied workmanship enhanced by and enhancing the
preciousness of the material. So you may not only gain a reputation for
goodness and geniality, but also escape envy; that is a feeling not
directed against people who let others participate in their prosperity
to a reasonable extent; every one prays that they may live long to
enjoy it. Your present practice results in an unsatisfying life, with
none to see your happiness, but plenty to grudge you your wealth.
It is surely not so agreeable to gorge yourself alone, like a lion
or an old wolf that has deserted the pack, as to have the company of
well-bred people who do their best to make things pleasant. In the
first place they banish dull silence from your table, and are ready
with a good story, a harmless jest, or some other contribution to
entertainment; that is the way to please the Gods of wine and love
and beauty. And secondly they win you love by spreading abroad next
morning your hospitable fame. These are things that would be cheap at a
considerable price.
For I put it to you whether, if blindness were a regular concomitant
of poverty (fancy is free), you would be indifferent to the want of
any one to impress with your purple clothes and attendant crowds
and massive rings. I will not dwell on the certainty that plots and
ill-feeling will be excited against you by your exclusiveness; suffice
it to say that the curses they threaten to imprecate upon you are
positively horrible; God forbid they should really be driven to it! You
would never taste sausage or pastry more; if the dog's depredations
stopped short of completeness, you would still find a fishy flavour
in your soup, the boar and the buck would effect an escape to the
mountains from off the very roasting-jack, and your birds (no matter
for their being plucked) would be off with a whiz and a whirr to the
poor men's tables. Worst of all, your pretty cup-bearers would turn
bald in a twinkling--the wine, by the way, having previously all been
spilt. I now leave you to make up your minds on the course that the
festival proprieties and your own safety recommend; these people are
extremely poor; a little relief will gain you friends worth having at a
trifling cost.
H.
IV
_The Rich to Cronus, Greeting. _
Do you really suppose, Sire, that these letters of the poor have gone
exclusively to _your_ address? Zeus is quite deaf with their clamour,
their appeals for redistribution, their complaints of Destiny for her
unfairness and of us for refusing them relief. But Zeus is Zeus; _he_
knows where the fault lies, and consequently pays them very little
attention. However, as the authority is at present with you, to you we
will address our defence. Having before our eyes all that you have laid
down on the beauty of assisting out of our abundance those who are in
want, and the delight of associating and making merry with the poor, we
adopted the principle of treating them on such equal terms that a guest
could not possibly have anything to complain of.
On their side, they started with professions of wanting very little
indeed; but that was only the thin edge of the wedge. Now, if their
demands are not instantly and literally satisfied, there is bad temper
and offence and talk; their tales may be as false as they will, every
one believes them: they have been there; they must know! Our only
choice was between a refusal that meant detestation, and a total
surrender that meant speedy ruin and transfer to the begging class for
ourselves.
But the worst is to come. At table that filling of the stomach (of
which we have by no means the monopoly) does not so completely occupy
them but that, when they have drunk a drop too much, they find time
for familiarities with the attendants or saucy compliments to the
ladies. Then, after being ill at our tables, they go home, and next day
reproach us with the hunger and thirst they feelingly describe.
