_ You see when it was we lost him,
Lycinus?
Lucian
But the
beauty of the Gorgons, irresistible in might, won its way to the inmost
soul, and wrought amazement and dumbness in the beholder; admiration
(so the legend goes) turned him to stone. All that my opponent has just
said about the peacock illustrates my point: that bird charms not the
ear, but the eye. Take a swan, take a nightingale, and set her singing:
now put a silent peacock at her side, and I will tell you which bird
has the attention of the company. The songstress may go hang now; so
invincible a thing is the pleasure of the eyes. Shall I call evidence?
A sage, then, shall be my witness, how far mightier are the things of
the eye than those of the ear. Usher, call me Herodotus, son of Lyxes,
of Halicarnassus. --Ah, since he has been so obliging as to hear the
summons, let him step into the box. You will excuse the Ionic dialect;
it is his way. '
_Gentlemen of the jury, the Theory hath spoken sooth. Give good heed
to that he saith, how sight is a better thing than hearing; for a man
shall sooner trust his eyes than his ears. _
'You hear him, gentlemen? He gives the preference to sight, and
rightly. For words have wings; they are no sooner out of the mouth than
they take flight and are lost: but the delight of the eyes is ever
present, ever draws the beholder to itself. Judge, then, the difficulty
the orator must experience in contending with such a rival as this
Hall, whose beauty attracts every eye.
'But my weightiest argument I have kept till now: you, gentlemen,
throughout the hearing of this case, have been gazing with admiration
on roof and wall, scanning each picture in its turn. I do not reproach
you: you have done what every man must do, when he beholds workmanship
so exquisite, subjects so varied. Here are works whose perfect
technique, applied as it is to the illustration of all that is useful
in history and mythology, holds out an irresistible challenge to the
judgement of the connoisseur. Now I would not have your eyes altogether
glued to those walls; I would fain have some share of your attention:
let me try, therefore, to give you word-pictures of these originals; I
think it may not be uninteresting to you to hear a description of those
very objects which your eyes view with such admiration. And you will
perhaps count it a point in my favour, that I, and not my antagonist,
have hit upon this means of doubling your pleasure. It is a hazardous
enterprise, I need not say,--without materials or models to put
together picture upon picture; this word-painting is but sketchy work.
'On our right as we enter, we have a story half Argive, half Ethiopian.
Perseus slays the sea-monster, and sets Andromeda free; it will not
be long ere he leads her away as his bride; an episode, this, in his
Gorgon expedition. The artist has given us much in a small space:
maiden modesty, girlish terror, are here portrayed in the countenance
of Andromeda, who from her high rock gazes down upon the strife, and
marks the devoted courage of her lover, the grim aspect of his bestial
antagonist. As that bristling horror approaches, with awful gaping
jaws, Perseus in his left hand displays the Gorgon's head, while his
right grasps the drawn sword. All of the monster that falls beneath
Medusa's eyes is stone already; and all of him that yet lives the
scimetar hews to pieces.
'In the next picture, a tale of retributive justice is dramatically
set forth. The painter seems to have taken his hint from Euripides or
Sophocles; each of them has portrayed this incident. The two young men
are friends: Pylades of Phocis, and Orestes, who is thought to be dead.
They have stolen into the palace unobserved, and together they slay
Aegisthus. Clytemnestra has already been dispatched: her body lies,
half-naked, upon a bed; all the household stand aghast at the deed;
some cry out, others look about for means of escape. A fine thought
of the painter's: the matricide is but slightly indicated, as a thing
achieved: with the slaying of the paramour, it is otherwise; there is
something deliberate in the manner in which the lads go about their
work.
'Next comes a more tender scene. We behold a comely God, and a
beautiful boy. The boy is Branchus: sitting on a rock, he holds out
a hare to tease his dog, who is shown in the act of jumping for it.
Apollo looks on, well pleased: half of his smile is for the dog's
eagerness, and half for the mischievous boy.
'Once more Perseus; an earlier adventure, this time. He is cutting off
Medusa's head, while Athene screens him from her sight. Although the
blow is struck, he has never seen his handiwork, only the reflection of
the head upon the shield; he knows the price of a single glance at the
reality.
'High upon the middle wall, facing the door, a shrine of Athene is
modelled. The statue of the Goddess is in white marble. She is not
shown in martial guise; it is the Goddess of War in time of peace.
'We have seen Athene in marble: next we see her in painting. She flies
from the pursuit of amorous Hephaestus; it was to this moment that
Erichthonius owed his origin.
'The next picture deals with the ancient story of Orion. He is blind,
and on his shoulder carries Cedalion, who directs the sightless eyes
towards the East. The rising Sun heals his infirmity; and there stands
Hephaestus on Lemnos, watching the cure.
'Then we have Odysseus, seeking by feigned madness to avoid joining the
expedition of the Atridae, whose messengers have already appeared to
summon him. Nothing could be more convincing than his plough-chariot,
his ill-assorted team, and his apparent unconsciousness of all that
is going forward. But his paternal feeling betrays him. Palamedes,
penetrating his secret, seizes upon Telemachus, and threatens him
with drawn sword. If the other can act madness, _he_ can act anger.
The father in Odysseus is revealed: he is frightened into sanity, and
throws aside the mask.
'Last of all is Medea, burning with jealousy, glaring askance upon her
children, and thinking dreadful thoughts. See, the sword even now is in
her hand: and there sit the victims, smiling; they see the sword, yet
have no thought of what is to come.
'Need I say, gentlemen, how the sight of all these pictures draws away
the attention of the audience upon them, and leaves the orator without
a single hearer? If I have described them at length, it was not in
order to impress you with the headstrong audacity of my opponent, in
voluntarily thrusting himself upon an audience so ill-disposed. I seek
not to call down your condemnation nor your resentment upon him, nor
do I ask you to refuse him a hearing: rather I would have you assist
his endeavours, listen to him, if you can, with closed eyes, and
remember the difficulty of his undertaking; when you, his judges, have
become his fellow workers, he will still have much ado to escape the
imputation of bringing discredit upon this magnificent Hall. And if it
seem strange to you that I should plead thus on my antagonist's behalf,
you must attribute it to my fondness for this same Hall, which makes me
anxious that every man who speaks in it should come off creditably, be
he who he may. '
F.
PATRIOTISM
It is a truism with no pretensions to novelty that there is nothing
sweeter than one's country. Does that imply that, though there is
nothing pleasanter, there may be something grander or more divine? Why,
of all that men reckon grand and divine their country is the source and
teacher, originating, developing, inculcating. For great and brilliant
and splendidly equipped cities many men have admiration, but for their
own all men have love. No man--not the most enthusiastic sightseer that
ever was--is so dazzled by foreign wonders as to forget his own land.
He who boasts that he is a citizen of no mean city misses, it seems to
me, the true patriotism; he suggests that it would be a mortification
to him to belong to a State less distinguished. It is country in the
abstract that I delight rather to honour. It is well enough when you
are comparing States to investigate the questions of size or beauty
or markets; but when it is a matter of choosing a country, no one
would exchange his own for one more glorious; he may wish that his own
resembled those more highly blest, but he will choose it, defects and
all.
It is the same with loyal sons, or good fathers. A young man who has
the right stuff in him will honour no man above his father; nor will
a father set his affections on some other young man to the neglect
of his son. On the contrary, fathers are so convinced of their
children's being better than they really are, that they reckon them the
handsomest, the tallest, the most accomplished of their generation. Any
one who does not judge his offspring thus I cannot allow to have the
father's eye.
The fatherland! it is the first and the nearest of all names. It is
true there is nothing nearer than a father; but a man who duly honours
his father, according to the dictates of law and nature, will yet be
right to honour his fatherland in still higher degree; for that father
himself belongs to the fatherland; so does his father's father, and all
his house back and back, till the line ends with the Gods our fathers.
The Gods too love the lands of their nativity; though they may be
supposed to concern themselves with human affairs in general, claiming
the whole of earth and sea as theirs, yet each of them honours
above all other lands the one that gave him birth. That State is
more majestic which a God calls his country, that isle has an added
sanctity in which poesy affirms that one was born. Those are acceptable
offerings, which a man has come to their respective homes to make. And
if Gods are patriotic, shall not men be more so?
For it was from his own country that every man looked his first upon
the Sun; that God, though he be common to all men, yet each reckons
among his country Gods, because in that country he was revealed to
him. There speech came to him, the speech that belonged to that soil,
and there he got knowledge of the Gods. If his country be such that to
attain true culture he must seek another, yet even for that culture let
him thank his country; the word State he could never have known, had
not his country shown him that States existed.
And surely men gather culture and learning, that they may thereby
render themselves more serviceable to their country; they amass wealth
that they may outdo their neighbours in devoting it to their country's
good. And 'tis no more than reason; it is not for those who have
received the greatest of all benefits to prove thankless; if we are
grateful, as we doubtless should be, to the individual benefactor, much
more ought we to give our country her due; against neglect of parents
the various States have laws; we should account our country the common
mother of us all, and recompense her who bred us, and taught us that
there were laws.
The man was never known who so forgot his country as to be indifferent
to it when established in another State. All who fare ill abroad are
perpetually thinking how country is the best of all good things; and
those who fare well, whatever their general prosperity, are ever
conscious of the one thing lacking: they do not live at home, but
are exiles; and exile is a reproach. Those again whose sojourn has
brought them distinction by way of garnered wealth or honourable fame,
acknowledged culture or approved courage, all of them, you will find,
yearn for their native land, where are the spectators of their triumphs
that they would most desire. A man's longing for home is indeed in
direct proportion to his credit abroad.
Even the young have the patriotic sentiment; but in the old it is as
much more keen as their sense is greater. Every old man directs his
efforts and his prayers to ending his life in his own land; where he
began to live, there would he lay his bones, in the soil that formed
him, and join his fathers in the grave. It is a dread fate to be
condemned to exile even in death, and lie in alien earth.
But if you would know the true man's feeling for his country, it is in
the born citizen that you must study it. The merely naturalized are
a sort of bastards ever ready for another change; they know not nor
love the name of country, but think they may find what they need in one
place as well as another; their standard of happiness is the pleasures
of the belly. Those whose country is their true mother love the land
whereon they were born and bred, though it be narrow and rough and poor
of soil. If they cannot vaunt the goodness of the land, they are still
at no loss for praises of their country; if they see others making much
of bounteous plains and meadows variegated with all plants that grow,
they too can call up their country's praise; another may breed good
horses; what matter? theirs breeds good men.
A man is fain to be at home, though the home be but an islet; though he
might have fortune among strangers, he will not take immortality there;
to be buried in his own land is better. Brighter to him the smoke of
home than the fire of other lands.
In such honour everywhere is the name of country that you will find
legislators all the world over punishing the worst offences with exile,
as the heaviest penalty at their command. And it is just the same with
generals on service. When the men are taking their places for battle,
no such encouragement as to tell them they are fighting for their
country. No one will disgrace himself after that if he can help it; the
name of country turns even a coward into a brave man.
H.
DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE
The southern parts of Libya are all deep sand and parched soil, a
desert of wide extent that produces nothing, one vast plain destitute
of grass, herb, vegetation, and water; or if a remnant of the scanty
rain stands here and there in a hollow place, it is turbid and
evil-smelling, undrinkable even in the extremity of thirst. The land
is consequently uninhabited; savage, dried up, barren, droughty, how
should it support life? The mere temperature, an atmosphere that is
rather fire than air, and a haze of burning sand, make the district
quite inaccessible.
On its borders dwell the Garamantians, a lightly clad, agile tribe of
tent-dwellers subsisting mainly by the chase. These are the only people
who occasionally penetrate the desert, in pursuit of game. They wait
till rain falls, about the winter solstice, mitigating the excessive
heat, moistening the sand, and making it just passable. Their quarry
consists chiefly of wild asses, the giant ostrich that runs instead of
flying, and monkeys, to which the elephant is sometimes added; these
are the only creatures sufficiently proof against thirst and capable of
bearing that incessant fiery sunshine. But the Garamantians, as soon
as they have consumed the provisions they brought with them, instantly
hurry back, in fear of the sand's recovering its heat and becoming
difficult or impassable, in which case they would be trapped, and lose
their lives as well as their game. For if the sun draws up the vapour,
dries the ground rapidly, and has an access of heat, throwing into its
rays the fresh vigour derived from that moisture which is its aliment,
there is then no escape.
But all that I have yet mentioned, heat, thirst, desolation,
barrenness, you will count less formidable than what I now come to,
a sufficient reason in itself for avoiding that land. It is beset by
all sorts of reptiles, of huge size, in enormous numbers, hideous and
venomous beyond belief or cure. Some of them have burrows in the sand,
others live on the surface--toads, asps, vipers, horned snakes and
stinging beetles, lance-snakes, reversible snakes[3], dragons, and two
kinds of scorpion, one of great size and many joints that runs on the
ground, the other aerial, with gauzy wings like those of the locust,
grasshopper, or bat. With the multitude of flying things like these,
that part of Libya has no attraction for the traveller.
But the direst of all the reptiles bred in the sand is the dipsas or
thirst-snake; it is of no great size, and resembles the viper; its bite
is sharp, and the venom acts at once, inducing agonies to which there
is no relief. The flesh is burnt up and mortified, the victims feel as
if on fire, and yell like men at the stake. But the most overpowering
of their torments is that indicated by the creature's name. They have
an intolerable thirst; and the remarkable thing is, the more they
drink, the more they want to drink, the appetite growing with what it
feeds on. You will never quench their thirst, though you give them all
the water in Nile or Danube; water will be fuel, as much as if you
tried to put out a fire with oil.
Doctors explain this by saying that the venom is originally thick, and
gains in activity when diluted with the drink, becoming naturally more
fluid and circulating more widely.
I have not seen a man in this condition, and I pray Heaven I never may
behold such human sufferings; I am happy to say I have not set foot
upon Libyan soil. But I have had an epitaph repeated to me, which a
friend assured me he had read on the grave of a victim. My friend,
going from Libya to Egypt, had taken the only practicable land route by
the Great Syrtis. He there found a tomb on the beach at the sea's very
edge, with a pillar setting forth the manner of death. On it a man was
carved in the attitude familiar in pictures of Tantalus, standing by a
lake's side scooping up water to drink; the dipsas was wound about his
foot, in which its fangs were fastened, while a number of women with
jars were pouring water over him. Hard by were lying eggs like those
of the ostrich hunted, as I mentioned, by the Garamantians. And then
there was the epitaph, which it may be worth while to give you:
See the envenom'd cravings Tantalus
Could find no thirst-assuaging charm to still,
The cask that daughter-brood of Danaus,
For ever filling, might not ever fill.
There are four more lines about the eggs, and how he was bitten while
taking them; but I forget how they go.
The neighbouring tribes, however, do collect and value these eggs, and
not only for food; they use the empty shells for vessels and make cups
of them; for, as there is nothing but sand for material, they have no
pottery. A particularly large egg is a find; bisected, it furnishes two
hats big enough for the human head.
Accordingly the dipsas conceals himself near the eggs, and when a man
comes, crawls out and bites the unfortunate, who then goes through the
experiences just described, drinking and increasing his thirst and
getting no relief.
Now, gentlemen, I have not told you all this to show you I could do as
well as the poet Nicander, nor yet by way of proof that I have taken
some trouble with the natural history of Libyan reptiles; that would
be more in the doctor's line, who must know about such things with a
view to treatment. No, it is only that I am conscious (and now pray do
not be offended by my going to the reptiles for my illustration)--I
am conscious of the same feelings towards you as a dipsas victim has
towards drink; the more I have of your company, the more of it I want;
my thirst for it rages uncontrollably; I shall never have enough
of this drink. And no wonder; where else could one find such clear
sparkling water? You must pardon me, then, if, bitten to the soul (most
agreeably and wholesomely bitten), I put my head under the fountain and
gulp the liquor down. My only prayer is that the stream that flows from
you may never fail; never may your willingness to listen run dry and
leave me thirstily gaping! On my side there is no reason why drinking
should not go on for ever; the wise Plato says that you cannot have too
much of a good thing.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The amphisbaena, supposed to have a head at each end and move
either way.
A WORD WITH HESIOD
_Lycinus. Hesiod_
_Ly. _ As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that,
any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses,
together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the
noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there
is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity.
You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you
by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been,
and tell of that which is to come. Well, now, one half of your duties
you have admirably performed. You have traced back the genealogy of
the Gods to Chaos and Ge and Uranus and Eros; you have specified the
feminine virtues; and you have given advice to the farmer, adding
complete information with reference to the Pleiads, the seasons
suitable for ploughing, reaping, and sailing,--and I know not what
besides. But that far diviner gift, which would have been of so much
more practical utility to your readers, you do not exercise at all: the
soothsaying department is entirely overlooked. We find no parallel in
your poems to those prophetic utterances which Calchas, and Telemus,
and Polyidus, and Phineus--persons less favoured by the Muses than
yourself--were wont to dispense freely to all applicants. Now in
these circumstances, you must plead guilty to one of three charges.
Either the alleged promise of the Muses to disclose the future to you
_was_ never given, and you are--excuse the expression--a liar: or it
was given, and fulfilled, but you, niggard, have quietly pocketed
the information, and refuse to impart it to them that have need: or,
thirdly, you _have_ composed a number of prophetic works, but have not
yet given them to the world; they are reserved for some more suitable
occasion. I do not presume to suggest, as a fourth possibility, that
the Muses have only fulfilled half of their promise, and revoked
the other,--which, observe, is recorded first in your poem. Now, if
_you_ will not enlighten me on this subject, who can? As the Gods are
'givers of good,' so you, their friends and pupils, should impart your
knowledge frankly, and set our doubts at rest.
_Hes. _ My poor friend, there is one very simple answer to all your
questions: I might tell you that not one of my poems is my own work;
all is the Muses', and to them I might refer you for all that has
been said and left unsaid. For what came of my own knowledge, of
pasturage, of milking, of driving afield, and all that belongs to
the herdsman's art, I may fairly be held responsible: but for the
Goddesses,--they give whatso they will to whom they will. --Apart from
this, however, I have the usual poet's apology. The poet, I conceive,
is not to be called to account in this minute fashion, syllable by
syllable. If in the fervour of composition a word slip in unawares,
search not too narrowly; remember that with us metre and euphony have
much to answer for; and then there are certain amplifications--certain
elegances--that insinuate themselves into a verse, one scarce knows
how. Sir, you would rob us of our highest prerogative, our freedom,
our unfettered movement. Blind to the flowers of poetry, you are
intent upon its thorns, upon those little flaws that give a handle to
malicious criticism. But there! you are not the only offender, nor I
the only victim: in the trivial defects of Homer, my fellow craftsman,
many a carping spirit has found material for similar hair-splitting
disquisitions. --Come, now, I will meet my accuser on fair ground,
face to face. Read, fellow, in my _Works and Days_: mark the inspired
prophecies there set forth: the doom foretold to the negligent, the
success promised to him that labours aright and in due season.
One basket shall suffice to store thy grain,
And men shall not regard thee.
Could there be a more timely warning, balanced as it is by the
prospect of abundance held out to him that follows the true method of
agriculture?
_Ly. _ Admirable; and spoken like a true herdsman. There is no doubting
the divine afflatus after that: left to yourself, you cannot so much
as defend your own poems. At the same time, this is not quite the
sort of thing we expect of Hesiod and the Muses combined. You see, in
this particular branch of prophecy, you are quite outclassed by the
farmers: they are perfectly qualified to inform us that if the rain
comes there will be a heavy crop, and that a drought, on the other
hand, will inevitably be followed by scarcity; that midsummer is not a
good time to begin ploughing if you wish your seed to do anything, and
that you will find no grain in the ear if you reap it when it is green.
Nor do we want a prophet to tell us that the sower must be followed
by a labourer armed with a spade, to cover up the seed; otherwise,
the birds will come and consume his prospective harvest. Call these
useful suggestions, if you like: but they are very far from my idea of
prophecy. I expect a prophet to penetrate into secrets wholly hidden
from our eyes: the prophet informs Minos that he will find his son
drowned in a jar of honey; he explains to the Achaeans the cause of
Apollo's resentment; he specifies the precise year in which Troy will
be captured. That _is_ prophecy. But if the term is to be so extended,
then I shall be glad to have my own claims recognized without loss
of time. I undertake, without the assistance of Castalian waters,
laurel-branches, or Delphian tripods, to foretell and prognosticate:
_That if a man walk out on a cold morning with nothing on, he will
take a severe chill; and particularly if it happens to be raining or
hailing at the time_. And I further prophesy: _That his chill will be
accompanied by the usual fever_; together with other circumstances
which it would be superfluous to mention.
No, Hesiod: your defence will not do; nor will your prophecies. But I
dare say there is something in what you said at first--that you knew
not what you wrote, by reason of the divine afflatus versifying within
you. And that afflatus was no such great matter, either: afflatuses
should not promise more than they mean to perform.
F.
THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES
_Lycinus. Timolaus. Samippus. Adimantus_
_Ly. _ Said I not well? More easily shall a corpse lie mouldering in
the sun, and the vulture mark it not, than any strange sight escape
Timolaus, no matter though he must run all the way to Corinth at a
stretch for it. --Indefatigable sightseer!
_Ti. _ Well, Lycinus, what do you expect? One has nothing to do, and
just then one hears that a great monster of an Egyptian corn-ship has
put in to Piraeus. What is more, I believe you and Samippus came down
on precisely the same errand.
_Ly. _ So we did, so we did, and Adimantus with us; only he has got lost
somewhere in the crowd of spectators. We came all together to the ship;
and going on board you were in front, Samippus, if I remember, and
Adimantus next, and I was behind, hanging on to him for dear life; he
gave me a hand all up the gangway, because I had never taken my shoes
off, and he had; but I saw no more of him after that, either on board
or when we came ashore.
_Sa.
_ You see when it was we lost him, Lycinus? It must have been
when that nice-looking boy came up from the hold, you know, with the
beautiful clean linen, and his hair parted in the middle and done up in
a knot behind. If I know anything of Adimantus, he no sooner saw that
charming sight, than he said good-bye to the Egyptian ship-wright who
was showing us round; and now stands urging his tearful suit. You know
his way; tears come natural to him in these affairs of the heart.
_Ly. _ Well, but, Samippus, this boy was nothing great, that he should
make such a conquest; Adimantus has the beauties of Athens at his
beck; nice gentlemanly boys, with good Greek on their tongues, and
the mark of the gymnasium on every muscle; a man may languish under
_their_ rigours with some credit. As for this fellow, to say nothing
of his dark skin, and protruding lips, and spindle shanks, his words
came tumbling out in a heap, one on the top of another; it was Greek,
of course, but the voice, the accent were Egyptian born. And then his
hair: no freeman ever had his hair tied up in a knot behind like that.
_Ti. _ Oh, but that is a sign of noble birth in Egypt, Lycinus. All
gentlemen's sons wear their hair done up till they reach manhood. It
was the other way with our ancestors: the topknot, and the golden
grasshopper to keep it together, were the proper thing for old men in
their time.
_Sa. _ Very much to the point, Timolaus; you allude to the remarks in
Thucydides's preface, about our old luxurious habits, as preserved in
the Asiatic colonies.
_Ly. _ Of course! I remember now where it was we lost Adimantus. It was
when we were standing all that time looking up at the mast, counting
the layers of hides, and watching that marvellous fellow going up the
shrouds, and running along the yards, perfectly comfortable, with just
a hand on the yard-tackling.
_Sa. _ So it was. Well, now what are we to do? Shall we wait for him
here, or do you think I had better go back on board?
_Ti. _ No, no, let us walk on; he has probably gone tearing off home,
not being able to find us. Anyhow, he knows the way; he will never get
lost for want of us to take care of him.
_Ly. _ It is rather a shame, perhaps, to go off and leave one's friend
to shift for himself. However, I agree, if Samippus does.
_Sa. _ Certainly I do. We may find the gymnasium open still. --I say,
though, what a size that ship was! 180 feet long, the man said, and
something over a quarter of that in width; and from deck to keel, the
maximum depth, through the hold, 44 feet. And then the height of the
mast, with its huge yard; and what a forestay it takes to hold it! And
the lofty stern with its gradual curve, and its gilded beak, balanced
at the other end by the long rising sweep of the prow, and the figures
of her name-goddess, Isis, on either side. As to the other ornamental
details, the paintings and the scarlet topsail, I was more struck by
the anchors, and the capstans and windlasses, and the stern cabins. The
crew was like a small army. And they were saying she carried as much
corn as would feed every soul in Attica for a year. And all depends for
its safety on one little old atomy of a man, who controls that great
rudder with a mere broomstick of a tiller! He was pointed out to me;
Heron was his name, I think; a woolly-pated fellow, half-bald.
_Ti. _ He is a wonderful hand at it, so the crew say; a very Proteus in
sea-cunning. Did they tell you how he brought them here, and all their
adventures? how they were saved by a star?
_Ly. _ No; you can tell us about that now.
_Ti. _ I had it from the master, a nice intelligent fellow to talk to.
They set sail with a moderate wind from Pharus, and sighted Acamas on
the seventh day. Then a west wind got up, and they were carried as
far east as Sidon. On their way thence they came in for a heavy gale,
and the tenth day brought them through the Straits to the Chelidon
Isles; and there they very nearly went to the bottom. I have sailed
past the Chelidons myself, and I know the sort of seas you get there,
especially if the wind is SW. by S. ; it is just there, of course, that
the division takes place between the Lycian and Pamphylian waters; and
the surge caused by the numerous currents gets broken at the headland,
whose rocks have been sharpened by the action of the water till they
are like razors; the result is a stupendous crash of waters, the waves
often rising to the very top of the crags. This was the kind of thing
they found themselves in for, according to the master,--and on a pitch
dark night! However, the Gods were moved by their distress, and showed
them a fire that enabled them to identify the Lycian coast; and a
bright star--either Castor or Pollux--appeared at the masthead, and
guided the ship into the open sea on their left; just in time, for
she was making straight for the cliff. Having once lost their proper
course, they sailed on through the Aegean, bearing up against the
Etesian winds, until they came to anchor in Piraeus yesterday, being
the seventieth day of the voyage; you see how far they had been carried
out of their way; whereas if they had taken Crete on their right, they
would have doubled Malea, and been at Rome by this time.
_Ly. _ A pretty pilot this Heron, and no mistake, to get so far out in
his reckoning; a man after Nereus's heart! --But look! that is surely
Adimantus?
_Ti. _ Adimantus it is. Let us hail him. Adimantus! . . . Son of
Strombichus! . . . of the deme of Myrrhinus! He must be offended with us,
or else he is deaf; it is certainly he.
_Ly. _ I can make him out quite clearly now; his cloak, his walk, his
cropped head. Let us mend our pace, and catch him up. --We shall have
to pull you by the cloak, and compel you to turn round, Adimantus;
you will take no notice of our shouts. You seem like one rapt in
contemplation; you are pondering on matters of no light import?
_Ad. _ Oh, it is nothing serious. An idle fancy, that came to me as I
walked, and engrossed my attention, so that I never heard you.
_Ly. _ And the fancy? Tell us without reserve, unless it is a very
delicate matter. And even if it is, you know, we have all been through
the Mysteries; we can keep a secret.
_Ad. _ No, I had rather not tell you; you would think it so childish.
_Ly. _ Can it be a love affair? Speak on; _those_ mysteries too are not
unknown to us; we have been initiated in full torchlight.
_Ad. _ Oh dear, no; nothing of that kind. --No; I was making myself an
imaginary present of a fortune--that 'vain, deluding joy,' as it has
been called; I had just reached the pinnacle of luxury and affluence
when you arrived.
_Ly. _ Then all I have to say is, 'Halves! ' Come, out with your wealth!
We are Adimantus's friends: let us share his superfluities.
_Ad. _ Well, I lost sight of you at once on the ship--the moment I
had got you safely up, Lycinus. I was measuring the thickness of the
anchor, and you disappeared somewhere. However, I went on and saw
everything, and then I asked one of the sailors how much the vessel
brought in to her owner in an average year. Three thousand pounds, he
said, was the lowest reckoning. So afterwards, on the way back, I was
thinking: Suppose some God took it into his head to make _me_ a present
of that ship; what a glorious life I should have of it, and my friends
too! Sometimes I could make the trip myself, at other times I could
send my men. On the strength of that three thousand, I had already
built myself a house, nicely situated just above the Poecile--I would
have nothing more to say to my ancestral abode on the banks of the
Ilissus,--and was in treaty for my wardrobe and slaves and chariots and
stable. And now behold me on board, the envy of every passenger, and
the terror of my crew, who regarded me as next thing to a king; I was
getting matters shipshape, and taking a last look at the port in the
distance, when up comes Lycinus, capsizes the vessel, just as she is
scudding before a wishing wind, and sends all my wealth to the bottom.
_Ly. _ Well, you are a man of spirit: lay hands on me, and away with
me to the governor, for the buccaneer that I am. A flagrant case of
piracy; on the high roads, too, between Athens and Piraeus. Stay,
though; perhaps we can compound the matter. What do you say to _five_
ships, larger and finer ones than your Egyptian; above all, warranted
not to sink? --each to bring you, shall we say, five cargoes of corn
per annum? Though I foresee that you will be the most unbearable of
shipowners when you have got them. The possession of this one made you
deaf to our salutations; give you five more--three-masters all of them,
and imperishable--and the result is obvious: you will not know your
friends when you see them. And so, good voyage to your worship; we will
establish ourselves at Piraeus, and question all who land from Egypt or
Italy, as to whether they came across Adimantus's great ship, the Isis,
anywhere.
_Ad. _ There now; that was why I refused to tell you about it at first;
I knew you would make a jest and a laughing-stock of my Wish. So now I
shall stop here till you have got on ahead, and then I shall go another
voyage on my ship. I like talking to my sailors much better than being
jeered at by you.
_Ly. _ That will never do. We shall hang about, and go on board too.
_Ad. _ I shall go on first, and haul up the gangway.
_Ly. _ Then we shall swim across and board you. You seem to think there
will be no difficulty about your acquiring these great ships without
building them or paying for them; why should not _we_ obtain from the
Gods the privilege of swimming for an indefinite distance without
getting tired? You made no objection to our company the other day, you
know, when we all went across together to Aegina, to see the rites of
Hecate, in that tiny little boat, at sixpence a head; and now you are
furious at the idea of our going on board with you; you go on ahead,
and haul up the gangway. You forget yourself, my Shipowner; you wax fat
and kick; you withhold from Nemesis her due. See what comes of houses
in fashionable quarters, and great retinues. Well, please remember to
bring us back some of those exquisite smoked fish from the Nile, or
some myrrh from Canopus, or an ibis from Memphis;--I suppose you would
scarcely have room for a pyramid?
_Ti. _ That is enough, Lycinus. Spare his blushes. You have quite
swamped his ship; she is laughter-logged, and can weather it no longer.
Now, we have still some distance before us; let us break it up into
four parts, and each have so many furlongs, in which he may demand of
the Gods what he will. This will lighten our journey, and amuse us into
the bargain; we shall revel in a delightful waking dream of unlimited
prosperity; for each of us will have full control of his own Wish, and
it will be understood that the Gods must grant everything, however
impracticable. Above all, it will give us an idea who would make the
best use of the supposed wealth; we shall see what kind of a man it
would have made of him.
_Sa. _ A good idea. I am your man; I undertake to wish when my turn
comes. We need not ask Adimantus whether he agrees; he has one foot on
board already. We must have Lycinus's sanction, however.
_Ly. _ Why, let us to our wealth, if so it must be. Where all is
prosperity, I would not be thought to cast an evil eye.
_Ad. _ Who begins?
_Ly. _ You; and then Samippus, and then Timolaus. I shall only want the
last hundred yards or so before the Gate for mine, and a quick hundred,
too.
_Ad. _ Well, I stick to my ship still; only I shall wish some more
things, as it is allowed. May the God of Luck say Yes to all! I will
have the ship, and everything in her; the cargo, the merchants, the
women, the sailors, and anything else that is particularly nice to have.
_Sa. _ You forget one thing you have on board--
_Ad. _ Oh, the boy with the hair; yes, him too. And instead of the
present cargo of wheat, I will have the same bulk of coined gold, all
sovereigns.
_Ly. _ Hullo! The ship will sink. Wheat and gold to the same bulk are
not of the same weight.
_Ad. _ Now, don't make envious remarks. When your turn comes, you can
have the whole of Parnes turned into a mass of gold if you like, and I
shall say nothing.
_Ly. _ Oh, I was only thinking of your safety. I don't want all hands to
go down with the golden cargo. It would not matter so much about us,
but the poor boy would be drowned; he can't swim.
_Ti. _ Oh, that will be all right. The dolphins will pick him up and get
him to shore. Shall a paltry musician be rescued by them for a song's
sake, a lifeless Melicertes be carried on their backs to the Isthmus,
and Adimantus's latest purchase find never an amorous dolphin at his
need?
_Ad. _ Timolaus, you are just as bad as Lycinus, with your superfluous
sneers. You ought to know better; it was all your idea.
_Ti. _ You should make it more plausible. Find a treasure under your
bed; that would save unloading the gold, and getting it up to town.
_Ad. _ Oh yes! It shall be dug up from under the Hermes in our court; a
thousand bushels of coined gold. Well; my first thought has been for
a handsome house,--'the homestead first and chiefest,' says Hesiod;
and my purchases in the neighbourhood are now complete; there remains
my property at Delphi, and the sea-front at Eleusis; and a little
something at the Isthmus (I might want to stop there for the games);
and the plain of Sicyon; and in short every scrap of land in the
country where there is nice shade, or a good stream, or fine fruit; I
reserve them all. We will eat off gold plate; and our cups shall weigh
100 lb. apiece; I will have none of the flimsy ware that appears on
Echecrates's table.
_Ly. _ I dare say! And how is your cupbearer going to hand you a thing
of that weight, when he has filled it? And how will you like taking
it from him? It would tax the muscles of a Sisyphus, let alone a
cupbearer's.
_Ad. _ Oh, don't keep on picking holes in my Wish. I shall have tables
and couches of solid gold, if I like; and servants too, if you say
another word.
_Ly. _ Well, take care, or you will be like Midas, with nothing but
gold to eat and drink; and die of a right royal hunger, a martyr to
superabundance.
_Ad. _ Your turn will come presently, Lycinus, and then you can be as
realistic as you like. To proceed: I must have purple raiment, and
every luxury, and sleep as late as I like; with friends to come and
pay court to me, and every one bowing down to the ground; and they
will all have to wait about at my doors from early morning--the great
Cleaenetus and Democritus among them; oh yes, and when they come and
try to get in before every one else, seven great foreign giants of
porters shall slam the door in their faces, just as theirs do now.
And as soon as I feel inclined, I shall peep out like the rising sun,
and some of that set I shall simply ignore; but if there is some poor
man there, like me before I got the treasure, I shall have a kind word
for him: 'You must come and have dinner with me, after your bath; you
know my hour.
beauty of the Gorgons, irresistible in might, won its way to the inmost
soul, and wrought amazement and dumbness in the beholder; admiration
(so the legend goes) turned him to stone. All that my opponent has just
said about the peacock illustrates my point: that bird charms not the
ear, but the eye. Take a swan, take a nightingale, and set her singing:
now put a silent peacock at her side, and I will tell you which bird
has the attention of the company. The songstress may go hang now; so
invincible a thing is the pleasure of the eyes. Shall I call evidence?
A sage, then, shall be my witness, how far mightier are the things of
the eye than those of the ear. Usher, call me Herodotus, son of Lyxes,
of Halicarnassus. --Ah, since he has been so obliging as to hear the
summons, let him step into the box. You will excuse the Ionic dialect;
it is his way. '
_Gentlemen of the jury, the Theory hath spoken sooth. Give good heed
to that he saith, how sight is a better thing than hearing; for a man
shall sooner trust his eyes than his ears. _
'You hear him, gentlemen? He gives the preference to sight, and
rightly. For words have wings; they are no sooner out of the mouth than
they take flight and are lost: but the delight of the eyes is ever
present, ever draws the beholder to itself. Judge, then, the difficulty
the orator must experience in contending with such a rival as this
Hall, whose beauty attracts every eye.
'But my weightiest argument I have kept till now: you, gentlemen,
throughout the hearing of this case, have been gazing with admiration
on roof and wall, scanning each picture in its turn. I do not reproach
you: you have done what every man must do, when he beholds workmanship
so exquisite, subjects so varied. Here are works whose perfect
technique, applied as it is to the illustration of all that is useful
in history and mythology, holds out an irresistible challenge to the
judgement of the connoisseur. Now I would not have your eyes altogether
glued to those walls; I would fain have some share of your attention:
let me try, therefore, to give you word-pictures of these originals; I
think it may not be uninteresting to you to hear a description of those
very objects which your eyes view with such admiration. And you will
perhaps count it a point in my favour, that I, and not my antagonist,
have hit upon this means of doubling your pleasure. It is a hazardous
enterprise, I need not say,--without materials or models to put
together picture upon picture; this word-painting is but sketchy work.
'On our right as we enter, we have a story half Argive, half Ethiopian.
Perseus slays the sea-monster, and sets Andromeda free; it will not
be long ere he leads her away as his bride; an episode, this, in his
Gorgon expedition. The artist has given us much in a small space:
maiden modesty, girlish terror, are here portrayed in the countenance
of Andromeda, who from her high rock gazes down upon the strife, and
marks the devoted courage of her lover, the grim aspect of his bestial
antagonist. As that bristling horror approaches, with awful gaping
jaws, Perseus in his left hand displays the Gorgon's head, while his
right grasps the drawn sword. All of the monster that falls beneath
Medusa's eyes is stone already; and all of him that yet lives the
scimetar hews to pieces.
'In the next picture, a tale of retributive justice is dramatically
set forth. The painter seems to have taken his hint from Euripides or
Sophocles; each of them has portrayed this incident. The two young men
are friends: Pylades of Phocis, and Orestes, who is thought to be dead.
They have stolen into the palace unobserved, and together they slay
Aegisthus. Clytemnestra has already been dispatched: her body lies,
half-naked, upon a bed; all the household stand aghast at the deed;
some cry out, others look about for means of escape. A fine thought
of the painter's: the matricide is but slightly indicated, as a thing
achieved: with the slaying of the paramour, it is otherwise; there is
something deliberate in the manner in which the lads go about their
work.
'Next comes a more tender scene. We behold a comely God, and a
beautiful boy. The boy is Branchus: sitting on a rock, he holds out
a hare to tease his dog, who is shown in the act of jumping for it.
Apollo looks on, well pleased: half of his smile is for the dog's
eagerness, and half for the mischievous boy.
'Once more Perseus; an earlier adventure, this time. He is cutting off
Medusa's head, while Athene screens him from her sight. Although the
blow is struck, he has never seen his handiwork, only the reflection of
the head upon the shield; he knows the price of a single glance at the
reality.
'High upon the middle wall, facing the door, a shrine of Athene is
modelled. The statue of the Goddess is in white marble. She is not
shown in martial guise; it is the Goddess of War in time of peace.
'We have seen Athene in marble: next we see her in painting. She flies
from the pursuit of amorous Hephaestus; it was to this moment that
Erichthonius owed his origin.
'The next picture deals with the ancient story of Orion. He is blind,
and on his shoulder carries Cedalion, who directs the sightless eyes
towards the East. The rising Sun heals his infirmity; and there stands
Hephaestus on Lemnos, watching the cure.
'Then we have Odysseus, seeking by feigned madness to avoid joining the
expedition of the Atridae, whose messengers have already appeared to
summon him. Nothing could be more convincing than his plough-chariot,
his ill-assorted team, and his apparent unconsciousness of all that
is going forward. But his paternal feeling betrays him. Palamedes,
penetrating his secret, seizes upon Telemachus, and threatens him
with drawn sword. If the other can act madness, _he_ can act anger.
The father in Odysseus is revealed: he is frightened into sanity, and
throws aside the mask.
'Last of all is Medea, burning with jealousy, glaring askance upon her
children, and thinking dreadful thoughts. See, the sword even now is in
her hand: and there sit the victims, smiling; they see the sword, yet
have no thought of what is to come.
'Need I say, gentlemen, how the sight of all these pictures draws away
the attention of the audience upon them, and leaves the orator without
a single hearer? If I have described them at length, it was not in
order to impress you with the headstrong audacity of my opponent, in
voluntarily thrusting himself upon an audience so ill-disposed. I seek
not to call down your condemnation nor your resentment upon him, nor
do I ask you to refuse him a hearing: rather I would have you assist
his endeavours, listen to him, if you can, with closed eyes, and
remember the difficulty of his undertaking; when you, his judges, have
become his fellow workers, he will still have much ado to escape the
imputation of bringing discredit upon this magnificent Hall. And if it
seem strange to you that I should plead thus on my antagonist's behalf,
you must attribute it to my fondness for this same Hall, which makes me
anxious that every man who speaks in it should come off creditably, be
he who he may. '
F.
PATRIOTISM
It is a truism with no pretensions to novelty that there is nothing
sweeter than one's country. Does that imply that, though there is
nothing pleasanter, there may be something grander or more divine? Why,
of all that men reckon grand and divine their country is the source and
teacher, originating, developing, inculcating. For great and brilliant
and splendidly equipped cities many men have admiration, but for their
own all men have love. No man--not the most enthusiastic sightseer that
ever was--is so dazzled by foreign wonders as to forget his own land.
He who boasts that he is a citizen of no mean city misses, it seems to
me, the true patriotism; he suggests that it would be a mortification
to him to belong to a State less distinguished. It is country in the
abstract that I delight rather to honour. It is well enough when you
are comparing States to investigate the questions of size or beauty
or markets; but when it is a matter of choosing a country, no one
would exchange his own for one more glorious; he may wish that his own
resembled those more highly blest, but he will choose it, defects and
all.
It is the same with loyal sons, or good fathers. A young man who has
the right stuff in him will honour no man above his father; nor will
a father set his affections on some other young man to the neglect
of his son. On the contrary, fathers are so convinced of their
children's being better than they really are, that they reckon them the
handsomest, the tallest, the most accomplished of their generation. Any
one who does not judge his offspring thus I cannot allow to have the
father's eye.
The fatherland! it is the first and the nearest of all names. It is
true there is nothing nearer than a father; but a man who duly honours
his father, according to the dictates of law and nature, will yet be
right to honour his fatherland in still higher degree; for that father
himself belongs to the fatherland; so does his father's father, and all
his house back and back, till the line ends with the Gods our fathers.
The Gods too love the lands of their nativity; though they may be
supposed to concern themselves with human affairs in general, claiming
the whole of earth and sea as theirs, yet each of them honours
above all other lands the one that gave him birth. That State is
more majestic which a God calls his country, that isle has an added
sanctity in which poesy affirms that one was born. Those are acceptable
offerings, which a man has come to their respective homes to make. And
if Gods are patriotic, shall not men be more so?
For it was from his own country that every man looked his first upon
the Sun; that God, though he be common to all men, yet each reckons
among his country Gods, because in that country he was revealed to
him. There speech came to him, the speech that belonged to that soil,
and there he got knowledge of the Gods. If his country be such that to
attain true culture he must seek another, yet even for that culture let
him thank his country; the word State he could never have known, had
not his country shown him that States existed.
And surely men gather culture and learning, that they may thereby
render themselves more serviceable to their country; they amass wealth
that they may outdo their neighbours in devoting it to their country's
good. And 'tis no more than reason; it is not for those who have
received the greatest of all benefits to prove thankless; if we are
grateful, as we doubtless should be, to the individual benefactor, much
more ought we to give our country her due; against neglect of parents
the various States have laws; we should account our country the common
mother of us all, and recompense her who bred us, and taught us that
there were laws.
The man was never known who so forgot his country as to be indifferent
to it when established in another State. All who fare ill abroad are
perpetually thinking how country is the best of all good things; and
those who fare well, whatever their general prosperity, are ever
conscious of the one thing lacking: they do not live at home, but
are exiles; and exile is a reproach. Those again whose sojourn has
brought them distinction by way of garnered wealth or honourable fame,
acknowledged culture or approved courage, all of them, you will find,
yearn for their native land, where are the spectators of their triumphs
that they would most desire. A man's longing for home is indeed in
direct proportion to his credit abroad.
Even the young have the patriotic sentiment; but in the old it is as
much more keen as their sense is greater. Every old man directs his
efforts and his prayers to ending his life in his own land; where he
began to live, there would he lay his bones, in the soil that formed
him, and join his fathers in the grave. It is a dread fate to be
condemned to exile even in death, and lie in alien earth.
But if you would know the true man's feeling for his country, it is in
the born citizen that you must study it. The merely naturalized are
a sort of bastards ever ready for another change; they know not nor
love the name of country, but think they may find what they need in one
place as well as another; their standard of happiness is the pleasures
of the belly. Those whose country is their true mother love the land
whereon they were born and bred, though it be narrow and rough and poor
of soil. If they cannot vaunt the goodness of the land, they are still
at no loss for praises of their country; if they see others making much
of bounteous plains and meadows variegated with all plants that grow,
they too can call up their country's praise; another may breed good
horses; what matter? theirs breeds good men.
A man is fain to be at home, though the home be but an islet; though he
might have fortune among strangers, he will not take immortality there;
to be buried in his own land is better. Brighter to him the smoke of
home than the fire of other lands.
In such honour everywhere is the name of country that you will find
legislators all the world over punishing the worst offences with exile,
as the heaviest penalty at their command. And it is just the same with
generals on service. When the men are taking their places for battle,
no such encouragement as to tell them they are fighting for their
country. No one will disgrace himself after that if he can help it; the
name of country turns even a coward into a brave man.
H.
DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE
The southern parts of Libya are all deep sand and parched soil, a
desert of wide extent that produces nothing, one vast plain destitute
of grass, herb, vegetation, and water; or if a remnant of the scanty
rain stands here and there in a hollow place, it is turbid and
evil-smelling, undrinkable even in the extremity of thirst. The land
is consequently uninhabited; savage, dried up, barren, droughty, how
should it support life? The mere temperature, an atmosphere that is
rather fire than air, and a haze of burning sand, make the district
quite inaccessible.
On its borders dwell the Garamantians, a lightly clad, agile tribe of
tent-dwellers subsisting mainly by the chase. These are the only people
who occasionally penetrate the desert, in pursuit of game. They wait
till rain falls, about the winter solstice, mitigating the excessive
heat, moistening the sand, and making it just passable. Their quarry
consists chiefly of wild asses, the giant ostrich that runs instead of
flying, and monkeys, to which the elephant is sometimes added; these
are the only creatures sufficiently proof against thirst and capable of
bearing that incessant fiery sunshine. But the Garamantians, as soon
as they have consumed the provisions they brought with them, instantly
hurry back, in fear of the sand's recovering its heat and becoming
difficult or impassable, in which case they would be trapped, and lose
their lives as well as their game. For if the sun draws up the vapour,
dries the ground rapidly, and has an access of heat, throwing into its
rays the fresh vigour derived from that moisture which is its aliment,
there is then no escape.
But all that I have yet mentioned, heat, thirst, desolation,
barrenness, you will count less formidable than what I now come to,
a sufficient reason in itself for avoiding that land. It is beset by
all sorts of reptiles, of huge size, in enormous numbers, hideous and
venomous beyond belief or cure. Some of them have burrows in the sand,
others live on the surface--toads, asps, vipers, horned snakes and
stinging beetles, lance-snakes, reversible snakes[3], dragons, and two
kinds of scorpion, one of great size and many joints that runs on the
ground, the other aerial, with gauzy wings like those of the locust,
grasshopper, or bat. With the multitude of flying things like these,
that part of Libya has no attraction for the traveller.
But the direst of all the reptiles bred in the sand is the dipsas or
thirst-snake; it is of no great size, and resembles the viper; its bite
is sharp, and the venom acts at once, inducing agonies to which there
is no relief. The flesh is burnt up and mortified, the victims feel as
if on fire, and yell like men at the stake. But the most overpowering
of their torments is that indicated by the creature's name. They have
an intolerable thirst; and the remarkable thing is, the more they
drink, the more they want to drink, the appetite growing with what it
feeds on. You will never quench their thirst, though you give them all
the water in Nile or Danube; water will be fuel, as much as if you
tried to put out a fire with oil.
Doctors explain this by saying that the venom is originally thick, and
gains in activity when diluted with the drink, becoming naturally more
fluid and circulating more widely.
I have not seen a man in this condition, and I pray Heaven I never may
behold such human sufferings; I am happy to say I have not set foot
upon Libyan soil. But I have had an epitaph repeated to me, which a
friend assured me he had read on the grave of a victim. My friend,
going from Libya to Egypt, had taken the only practicable land route by
the Great Syrtis. He there found a tomb on the beach at the sea's very
edge, with a pillar setting forth the manner of death. On it a man was
carved in the attitude familiar in pictures of Tantalus, standing by a
lake's side scooping up water to drink; the dipsas was wound about his
foot, in which its fangs were fastened, while a number of women with
jars were pouring water over him. Hard by were lying eggs like those
of the ostrich hunted, as I mentioned, by the Garamantians. And then
there was the epitaph, which it may be worth while to give you:
See the envenom'd cravings Tantalus
Could find no thirst-assuaging charm to still,
The cask that daughter-brood of Danaus,
For ever filling, might not ever fill.
There are four more lines about the eggs, and how he was bitten while
taking them; but I forget how they go.
The neighbouring tribes, however, do collect and value these eggs, and
not only for food; they use the empty shells for vessels and make cups
of them; for, as there is nothing but sand for material, they have no
pottery. A particularly large egg is a find; bisected, it furnishes two
hats big enough for the human head.
Accordingly the dipsas conceals himself near the eggs, and when a man
comes, crawls out and bites the unfortunate, who then goes through the
experiences just described, drinking and increasing his thirst and
getting no relief.
Now, gentlemen, I have not told you all this to show you I could do as
well as the poet Nicander, nor yet by way of proof that I have taken
some trouble with the natural history of Libyan reptiles; that would
be more in the doctor's line, who must know about such things with a
view to treatment. No, it is only that I am conscious (and now pray do
not be offended by my going to the reptiles for my illustration)--I
am conscious of the same feelings towards you as a dipsas victim has
towards drink; the more I have of your company, the more of it I want;
my thirst for it rages uncontrollably; I shall never have enough
of this drink. And no wonder; where else could one find such clear
sparkling water? You must pardon me, then, if, bitten to the soul (most
agreeably and wholesomely bitten), I put my head under the fountain and
gulp the liquor down. My only prayer is that the stream that flows from
you may never fail; never may your willingness to listen run dry and
leave me thirstily gaping! On my side there is no reason why drinking
should not go on for ever; the wise Plato says that you cannot have too
much of a good thing.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The amphisbaena, supposed to have a head at each end and move
either way.
A WORD WITH HESIOD
_Lycinus. Hesiod_
_Ly. _ As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that,
any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses,
together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the
noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there
is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity.
You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you
by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been,
and tell of that which is to come. Well, now, one half of your duties
you have admirably performed. You have traced back the genealogy of
the Gods to Chaos and Ge and Uranus and Eros; you have specified the
feminine virtues; and you have given advice to the farmer, adding
complete information with reference to the Pleiads, the seasons
suitable for ploughing, reaping, and sailing,--and I know not what
besides. But that far diviner gift, which would have been of so much
more practical utility to your readers, you do not exercise at all: the
soothsaying department is entirely overlooked. We find no parallel in
your poems to those prophetic utterances which Calchas, and Telemus,
and Polyidus, and Phineus--persons less favoured by the Muses than
yourself--were wont to dispense freely to all applicants. Now in
these circumstances, you must plead guilty to one of three charges.
Either the alleged promise of the Muses to disclose the future to you
_was_ never given, and you are--excuse the expression--a liar: or it
was given, and fulfilled, but you, niggard, have quietly pocketed
the information, and refuse to impart it to them that have need: or,
thirdly, you _have_ composed a number of prophetic works, but have not
yet given them to the world; they are reserved for some more suitable
occasion. I do not presume to suggest, as a fourth possibility, that
the Muses have only fulfilled half of their promise, and revoked
the other,--which, observe, is recorded first in your poem. Now, if
_you_ will not enlighten me on this subject, who can? As the Gods are
'givers of good,' so you, their friends and pupils, should impart your
knowledge frankly, and set our doubts at rest.
_Hes. _ My poor friend, there is one very simple answer to all your
questions: I might tell you that not one of my poems is my own work;
all is the Muses', and to them I might refer you for all that has
been said and left unsaid. For what came of my own knowledge, of
pasturage, of milking, of driving afield, and all that belongs to
the herdsman's art, I may fairly be held responsible: but for the
Goddesses,--they give whatso they will to whom they will. --Apart from
this, however, I have the usual poet's apology. The poet, I conceive,
is not to be called to account in this minute fashion, syllable by
syllable. If in the fervour of composition a word slip in unawares,
search not too narrowly; remember that with us metre and euphony have
much to answer for; and then there are certain amplifications--certain
elegances--that insinuate themselves into a verse, one scarce knows
how. Sir, you would rob us of our highest prerogative, our freedom,
our unfettered movement. Blind to the flowers of poetry, you are
intent upon its thorns, upon those little flaws that give a handle to
malicious criticism. But there! you are not the only offender, nor I
the only victim: in the trivial defects of Homer, my fellow craftsman,
many a carping spirit has found material for similar hair-splitting
disquisitions. --Come, now, I will meet my accuser on fair ground,
face to face. Read, fellow, in my _Works and Days_: mark the inspired
prophecies there set forth: the doom foretold to the negligent, the
success promised to him that labours aright and in due season.
One basket shall suffice to store thy grain,
And men shall not regard thee.
Could there be a more timely warning, balanced as it is by the
prospect of abundance held out to him that follows the true method of
agriculture?
_Ly. _ Admirable; and spoken like a true herdsman. There is no doubting
the divine afflatus after that: left to yourself, you cannot so much
as defend your own poems. At the same time, this is not quite the
sort of thing we expect of Hesiod and the Muses combined. You see, in
this particular branch of prophecy, you are quite outclassed by the
farmers: they are perfectly qualified to inform us that if the rain
comes there will be a heavy crop, and that a drought, on the other
hand, will inevitably be followed by scarcity; that midsummer is not a
good time to begin ploughing if you wish your seed to do anything, and
that you will find no grain in the ear if you reap it when it is green.
Nor do we want a prophet to tell us that the sower must be followed
by a labourer armed with a spade, to cover up the seed; otherwise,
the birds will come and consume his prospective harvest. Call these
useful suggestions, if you like: but they are very far from my idea of
prophecy. I expect a prophet to penetrate into secrets wholly hidden
from our eyes: the prophet informs Minos that he will find his son
drowned in a jar of honey; he explains to the Achaeans the cause of
Apollo's resentment; he specifies the precise year in which Troy will
be captured. That _is_ prophecy. But if the term is to be so extended,
then I shall be glad to have my own claims recognized without loss
of time. I undertake, without the assistance of Castalian waters,
laurel-branches, or Delphian tripods, to foretell and prognosticate:
_That if a man walk out on a cold morning with nothing on, he will
take a severe chill; and particularly if it happens to be raining or
hailing at the time_. And I further prophesy: _That his chill will be
accompanied by the usual fever_; together with other circumstances
which it would be superfluous to mention.
No, Hesiod: your defence will not do; nor will your prophecies. But I
dare say there is something in what you said at first--that you knew
not what you wrote, by reason of the divine afflatus versifying within
you. And that afflatus was no such great matter, either: afflatuses
should not promise more than they mean to perform.
F.
THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES
_Lycinus. Timolaus. Samippus. Adimantus_
_Ly. _ Said I not well? More easily shall a corpse lie mouldering in
the sun, and the vulture mark it not, than any strange sight escape
Timolaus, no matter though he must run all the way to Corinth at a
stretch for it. --Indefatigable sightseer!
_Ti. _ Well, Lycinus, what do you expect? One has nothing to do, and
just then one hears that a great monster of an Egyptian corn-ship has
put in to Piraeus. What is more, I believe you and Samippus came down
on precisely the same errand.
_Ly. _ So we did, so we did, and Adimantus with us; only he has got lost
somewhere in the crowd of spectators. We came all together to the ship;
and going on board you were in front, Samippus, if I remember, and
Adimantus next, and I was behind, hanging on to him for dear life; he
gave me a hand all up the gangway, because I had never taken my shoes
off, and he had; but I saw no more of him after that, either on board
or when we came ashore.
_Sa.
_ You see when it was we lost him, Lycinus? It must have been
when that nice-looking boy came up from the hold, you know, with the
beautiful clean linen, and his hair parted in the middle and done up in
a knot behind. If I know anything of Adimantus, he no sooner saw that
charming sight, than he said good-bye to the Egyptian ship-wright who
was showing us round; and now stands urging his tearful suit. You know
his way; tears come natural to him in these affairs of the heart.
_Ly. _ Well, but, Samippus, this boy was nothing great, that he should
make such a conquest; Adimantus has the beauties of Athens at his
beck; nice gentlemanly boys, with good Greek on their tongues, and
the mark of the gymnasium on every muscle; a man may languish under
_their_ rigours with some credit. As for this fellow, to say nothing
of his dark skin, and protruding lips, and spindle shanks, his words
came tumbling out in a heap, one on the top of another; it was Greek,
of course, but the voice, the accent were Egyptian born. And then his
hair: no freeman ever had his hair tied up in a knot behind like that.
_Ti. _ Oh, but that is a sign of noble birth in Egypt, Lycinus. All
gentlemen's sons wear their hair done up till they reach manhood. It
was the other way with our ancestors: the topknot, and the golden
grasshopper to keep it together, were the proper thing for old men in
their time.
_Sa. _ Very much to the point, Timolaus; you allude to the remarks in
Thucydides's preface, about our old luxurious habits, as preserved in
the Asiatic colonies.
_Ly. _ Of course! I remember now where it was we lost Adimantus. It was
when we were standing all that time looking up at the mast, counting
the layers of hides, and watching that marvellous fellow going up the
shrouds, and running along the yards, perfectly comfortable, with just
a hand on the yard-tackling.
_Sa. _ So it was. Well, now what are we to do? Shall we wait for him
here, or do you think I had better go back on board?
_Ti. _ No, no, let us walk on; he has probably gone tearing off home,
not being able to find us. Anyhow, he knows the way; he will never get
lost for want of us to take care of him.
_Ly. _ It is rather a shame, perhaps, to go off and leave one's friend
to shift for himself. However, I agree, if Samippus does.
_Sa. _ Certainly I do. We may find the gymnasium open still. --I say,
though, what a size that ship was! 180 feet long, the man said, and
something over a quarter of that in width; and from deck to keel, the
maximum depth, through the hold, 44 feet. And then the height of the
mast, with its huge yard; and what a forestay it takes to hold it! And
the lofty stern with its gradual curve, and its gilded beak, balanced
at the other end by the long rising sweep of the prow, and the figures
of her name-goddess, Isis, on either side. As to the other ornamental
details, the paintings and the scarlet topsail, I was more struck by
the anchors, and the capstans and windlasses, and the stern cabins. The
crew was like a small army. And they were saying she carried as much
corn as would feed every soul in Attica for a year. And all depends for
its safety on one little old atomy of a man, who controls that great
rudder with a mere broomstick of a tiller! He was pointed out to me;
Heron was his name, I think; a woolly-pated fellow, half-bald.
_Ti. _ He is a wonderful hand at it, so the crew say; a very Proteus in
sea-cunning. Did they tell you how he brought them here, and all their
adventures? how they were saved by a star?
_Ly. _ No; you can tell us about that now.
_Ti. _ I had it from the master, a nice intelligent fellow to talk to.
They set sail with a moderate wind from Pharus, and sighted Acamas on
the seventh day. Then a west wind got up, and they were carried as
far east as Sidon. On their way thence they came in for a heavy gale,
and the tenth day brought them through the Straits to the Chelidon
Isles; and there they very nearly went to the bottom. I have sailed
past the Chelidons myself, and I know the sort of seas you get there,
especially if the wind is SW. by S. ; it is just there, of course, that
the division takes place between the Lycian and Pamphylian waters; and
the surge caused by the numerous currents gets broken at the headland,
whose rocks have been sharpened by the action of the water till they
are like razors; the result is a stupendous crash of waters, the waves
often rising to the very top of the crags. This was the kind of thing
they found themselves in for, according to the master,--and on a pitch
dark night! However, the Gods were moved by their distress, and showed
them a fire that enabled them to identify the Lycian coast; and a
bright star--either Castor or Pollux--appeared at the masthead, and
guided the ship into the open sea on their left; just in time, for
she was making straight for the cliff. Having once lost their proper
course, they sailed on through the Aegean, bearing up against the
Etesian winds, until they came to anchor in Piraeus yesterday, being
the seventieth day of the voyage; you see how far they had been carried
out of their way; whereas if they had taken Crete on their right, they
would have doubled Malea, and been at Rome by this time.
_Ly. _ A pretty pilot this Heron, and no mistake, to get so far out in
his reckoning; a man after Nereus's heart! --But look! that is surely
Adimantus?
_Ti. _ Adimantus it is. Let us hail him. Adimantus! . . . Son of
Strombichus! . . . of the deme of Myrrhinus! He must be offended with us,
or else he is deaf; it is certainly he.
_Ly. _ I can make him out quite clearly now; his cloak, his walk, his
cropped head. Let us mend our pace, and catch him up. --We shall have
to pull you by the cloak, and compel you to turn round, Adimantus;
you will take no notice of our shouts. You seem like one rapt in
contemplation; you are pondering on matters of no light import?
_Ad. _ Oh, it is nothing serious. An idle fancy, that came to me as I
walked, and engrossed my attention, so that I never heard you.
_Ly. _ And the fancy? Tell us without reserve, unless it is a very
delicate matter. And even if it is, you know, we have all been through
the Mysteries; we can keep a secret.
_Ad. _ No, I had rather not tell you; you would think it so childish.
_Ly. _ Can it be a love affair? Speak on; _those_ mysteries too are not
unknown to us; we have been initiated in full torchlight.
_Ad. _ Oh dear, no; nothing of that kind. --No; I was making myself an
imaginary present of a fortune--that 'vain, deluding joy,' as it has
been called; I had just reached the pinnacle of luxury and affluence
when you arrived.
_Ly. _ Then all I have to say is, 'Halves! ' Come, out with your wealth!
We are Adimantus's friends: let us share his superfluities.
_Ad. _ Well, I lost sight of you at once on the ship--the moment I
had got you safely up, Lycinus. I was measuring the thickness of the
anchor, and you disappeared somewhere. However, I went on and saw
everything, and then I asked one of the sailors how much the vessel
brought in to her owner in an average year. Three thousand pounds, he
said, was the lowest reckoning. So afterwards, on the way back, I was
thinking: Suppose some God took it into his head to make _me_ a present
of that ship; what a glorious life I should have of it, and my friends
too! Sometimes I could make the trip myself, at other times I could
send my men. On the strength of that three thousand, I had already
built myself a house, nicely situated just above the Poecile--I would
have nothing more to say to my ancestral abode on the banks of the
Ilissus,--and was in treaty for my wardrobe and slaves and chariots and
stable. And now behold me on board, the envy of every passenger, and
the terror of my crew, who regarded me as next thing to a king; I was
getting matters shipshape, and taking a last look at the port in the
distance, when up comes Lycinus, capsizes the vessel, just as she is
scudding before a wishing wind, and sends all my wealth to the bottom.
_Ly. _ Well, you are a man of spirit: lay hands on me, and away with
me to the governor, for the buccaneer that I am. A flagrant case of
piracy; on the high roads, too, between Athens and Piraeus. Stay,
though; perhaps we can compound the matter. What do you say to _five_
ships, larger and finer ones than your Egyptian; above all, warranted
not to sink? --each to bring you, shall we say, five cargoes of corn
per annum? Though I foresee that you will be the most unbearable of
shipowners when you have got them. The possession of this one made you
deaf to our salutations; give you five more--three-masters all of them,
and imperishable--and the result is obvious: you will not know your
friends when you see them. And so, good voyage to your worship; we will
establish ourselves at Piraeus, and question all who land from Egypt or
Italy, as to whether they came across Adimantus's great ship, the Isis,
anywhere.
_Ad. _ There now; that was why I refused to tell you about it at first;
I knew you would make a jest and a laughing-stock of my Wish. So now I
shall stop here till you have got on ahead, and then I shall go another
voyage on my ship. I like talking to my sailors much better than being
jeered at by you.
_Ly. _ That will never do. We shall hang about, and go on board too.
_Ad. _ I shall go on first, and haul up the gangway.
_Ly. _ Then we shall swim across and board you. You seem to think there
will be no difficulty about your acquiring these great ships without
building them or paying for them; why should not _we_ obtain from the
Gods the privilege of swimming for an indefinite distance without
getting tired? You made no objection to our company the other day, you
know, when we all went across together to Aegina, to see the rites of
Hecate, in that tiny little boat, at sixpence a head; and now you are
furious at the idea of our going on board with you; you go on ahead,
and haul up the gangway. You forget yourself, my Shipowner; you wax fat
and kick; you withhold from Nemesis her due. See what comes of houses
in fashionable quarters, and great retinues. Well, please remember to
bring us back some of those exquisite smoked fish from the Nile, or
some myrrh from Canopus, or an ibis from Memphis;--I suppose you would
scarcely have room for a pyramid?
_Ti. _ That is enough, Lycinus. Spare his blushes. You have quite
swamped his ship; she is laughter-logged, and can weather it no longer.
Now, we have still some distance before us; let us break it up into
four parts, and each have so many furlongs, in which he may demand of
the Gods what he will. This will lighten our journey, and amuse us into
the bargain; we shall revel in a delightful waking dream of unlimited
prosperity; for each of us will have full control of his own Wish, and
it will be understood that the Gods must grant everything, however
impracticable. Above all, it will give us an idea who would make the
best use of the supposed wealth; we shall see what kind of a man it
would have made of him.
_Sa. _ A good idea. I am your man; I undertake to wish when my turn
comes. We need not ask Adimantus whether he agrees; he has one foot on
board already. We must have Lycinus's sanction, however.
_Ly. _ Why, let us to our wealth, if so it must be. Where all is
prosperity, I would not be thought to cast an evil eye.
_Ad. _ Who begins?
_Ly. _ You; and then Samippus, and then Timolaus. I shall only want the
last hundred yards or so before the Gate for mine, and a quick hundred,
too.
_Ad. _ Well, I stick to my ship still; only I shall wish some more
things, as it is allowed. May the God of Luck say Yes to all! I will
have the ship, and everything in her; the cargo, the merchants, the
women, the sailors, and anything else that is particularly nice to have.
_Sa. _ You forget one thing you have on board--
_Ad. _ Oh, the boy with the hair; yes, him too. And instead of the
present cargo of wheat, I will have the same bulk of coined gold, all
sovereigns.
_Ly. _ Hullo! The ship will sink. Wheat and gold to the same bulk are
not of the same weight.
_Ad. _ Now, don't make envious remarks. When your turn comes, you can
have the whole of Parnes turned into a mass of gold if you like, and I
shall say nothing.
_Ly. _ Oh, I was only thinking of your safety. I don't want all hands to
go down with the golden cargo. It would not matter so much about us,
but the poor boy would be drowned; he can't swim.
_Ti. _ Oh, that will be all right. The dolphins will pick him up and get
him to shore. Shall a paltry musician be rescued by them for a song's
sake, a lifeless Melicertes be carried on their backs to the Isthmus,
and Adimantus's latest purchase find never an amorous dolphin at his
need?
_Ad. _ Timolaus, you are just as bad as Lycinus, with your superfluous
sneers. You ought to know better; it was all your idea.
_Ti. _ You should make it more plausible. Find a treasure under your
bed; that would save unloading the gold, and getting it up to town.
_Ad. _ Oh yes! It shall be dug up from under the Hermes in our court; a
thousand bushels of coined gold. Well; my first thought has been for
a handsome house,--'the homestead first and chiefest,' says Hesiod;
and my purchases in the neighbourhood are now complete; there remains
my property at Delphi, and the sea-front at Eleusis; and a little
something at the Isthmus (I might want to stop there for the games);
and the plain of Sicyon; and in short every scrap of land in the
country where there is nice shade, or a good stream, or fine fruit; I
reserve them all. We will eat off gold plate; and our cups shall weigh
100 lb. apiece; I will have none of the flimsy ware that appears on
Echecrates's table.
_Ly. _ I dare say! And how is your cupbearer going to hand you a thing
of that weight, when he has filled it? And how will you like taking
it from him? It would tax the muscles of a Sisyphus, let alone a
cupbearer's.
_Ad. _ Oh, don't keep on picking holes in my Wish. I shall have tables
and couches of solid gold, if I like; and servants too, if you say
another word.
_Ly. _ Well, take care, or you will be like Midas, with nothing but
gold to eat and drink; and die of a right royal hunger, a martyr to
superabundance.
_Ad. _ Your turn will come presently, Lycinus, and then you can be as
realistic as you like. To proceed: I must have purple raiment, and
every luxury, and sleep as late as I like; with friends to come and
pay court to me, and every one bowing down to the ground; and they
will all have to wait about at my doors from early morning--the great
Cleaenetus and Democritus among them; oh yes, and when they come and
try to get in before every one else, seven great foreign giants of
porters shall slam the door in their faces, just as theirs do now.
And as soon as I feel inclined, I shall peep out like the rising sun,
and some of that set I shall simply ignore; but if there is some poor
man there, like me before I got the treasure, I shall have a kind word
for him: 'You must come and have dinner with me, after your bath; you
know my hour.
