No More Learning

Of these Nigrinus evidently had no opinion.
According to him, our first care should be to inure the _soul_ to
pain and hardship; he who aspired to educate men aright must reckon
with soul as well as body, with the age of his pupils, and with their
previous training; he would then escape the palpable blunder of
overtasking them. Many a one (he affirmed) had succumbed under the
unreasonable strain put upon him; and I met with an instance myself,
of a man who had tasted the hardships of those schools, but no sooner
heard the words of true wisdom, than he fled incontinently to
Nigrinus, and was manifestly the better for the change.

Leaving the philosophers to themselves, he reverted to more general
subjects: the din and bustle of the city, the theatres, the
race-course, the statues of charioteers, the nomenclature of horses,
the horse-talk in every side-street. The rage for horses has become a
positive epidemic; many persons are infected with it whom one would
have credited with more sense.

Then the scene changed to the pomp and circumstance attendant upon
funerals and testamentary dispositions. 'Only once in his life' (he
observed) 'does your thoroughbred Roman say what he means; and then,'
meaning, in his will, 'it comes too late for him to enjoy the credit
of it. ' I could not help laughing when he told me how they thought it
necessary to carry their follies with them to the grave, and to leave
the record of their inanity behind them in black and white; some
stipulating that their clothes or other treasures should be burnt with
them, others that their graves should be watched by particular
servants, or their monuments crowned with flowers;--sapient end to a
life of sapience! 'Of their doings in this world,' said he, 'you may
form some idea from their injunctions with reference to the next.
These are they who will pay a long price for an entree; whose floors
are sprinkled with wine and saffron and spices; who in midwinter
smother themselves in roses, ay, for roses are scarce, and out of
season, and altogether desirable; but let a thing come in its due
course, and oh, 'tis vile, 'tis contemptible. These are they whose
drink is of costly essences. ' He had no mercy on them here. 'Very
bunglers in sensuality, who know not her laws, and confound her
ordinances, flinging down their souls to be trampled beneath the heels
of luxury! As the play has it, Door or window, all is one to them.
Such pleasures are rank solecism. ' One observation of his in the same
spirit fairly caps the famous censure of Momus. Momus found fault with
the divine artificer for not putting his bull's horns in front of the
eyes. Similarly, Nigrinus complained that when these men crown
themselves in their banquets, they put the garlands in the wrong
place; if they are so fond of the smell of violets and roses, they
should tie on their garlands as close as may be under their nostrils;
they could then snuff up the smell to their hearts' content.

Proceeding to the gentlemen who make such a serious work of their
dinner, he was exceedingly merry over their painful elaborations of
sauce and seasoning. 'Here again,' he cried, 'these men are sore put
to it, to procure the most fleeting of enjoyments. Grant them four
inches of palate apiece--'tis the utmost we can allow any man--and I
will prove to you that they have four inches of gratification for
their trouble. Thus: there is no satisfaction to be got out of the
costliest viands before consumption; and after it a full stomach is
none the better for the price it has cost to fill it. _Ergo_, the
money is paid for the pleasure snatched _in transitu_. But what are we
to expect? These men are too grossly ignorant to discern those truer
pleasures with which Philosophy rewards our resolute endeavours. '

The Baths proved a fertile topic, what with the insolence of the
masters and the jostlings of their men;--'they will not stand without
the support of a slave; it is much that they retain enough vitality to
get away on their own legs at all. ' One practice which obtains in the
streets and Baths of Rome seemed to arouse his particular resentment.
Slaves have to walk on ahead of their masters, and call out to them to
'look to their feet,' whenever there is a hole or a lump in their way;
it has come to this, that men must be _reminded that they are
walking_. 'It is too much,' he cried; 'these men can get through their
dinner with the help of their own teeth and fingers; they can hear
with their own ears: yet they must have other men's eyes to see for
them! They are in possession of all their faculties: yet they are
content to be spoken to in language which should only be addressed to
poor maimed wretches! And this goes on in broad daylight, in our
public places; and among the sufferers are men who are responsible for
the welfare of cities! '

This he said, and much more to the same effect. At length he was
silent. All the time I had listened in awestruck attention, dreading
the moment when he should cease. And when it was all over, my
condition was like that of the Phaeacians. For a long time I gazed
upon him, spellbound; then I was seized with a violent attack of
giddiness; I was bathed in perspiration, and when I attempted to
speak, I broke down; my voice failed, my tongue stammered, and at last
I was reduced to tears. Mine was no surface wound from a random shaft.
The words had sunk deep into a vital part; had come with true aim, and
cleft my soul asunder. For (if I may venture to philosophize on my own
account) I conceive the case thus:-A well-conditioned human soul is
like a target of some soft material. As life goes on, many archers
take aim thereat; and every man's quiver is full of subtle and varied
arguments, but not every man shoots aright. Some draw the bow too
tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction,
but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them
right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a
gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows
are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as
often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to
earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; there
can be no deep wound, where the archer lacks strength. But a good
marksman, a Nigrinus, begins with a careful examination of the mark,
in case it should be particularly soft,--or again too hard; for there
are marks which will take no impression from an arrow. Satisfied on
this point, he dips his shaft, not in the poisons of Scythia or Crete,
but in a certain ointment of his own, which is sweet in flavour and
gentle in operation; then, without more ado, he lets fly. The shaft
speeds with well-judged swiftness, cleaves the mark right through, and
remains lodged in it; and the drug works its way through every part.
Thus it is that men hear his words with mingled joy and grief; and
this was my own case, while the drug was gently diffusing itself
through my soul. Hence I was moved to apostrophize him in the words of
Homer:

So aim; and thou shalt bring (to some) salvation.

For as it is not every man that is maddened by the sound of the
Phrygian flute, but only those who are inspired of Cybele, and by
those strains are recalled to their frenzy,--so too not every man who
hears the words of the philosophers will go away possessed, and
stricken at heart, but only those in whose nature is something akin to
philosophy.

_Fr_. These are fearful and wonderful words; nay, they are divine. All
that you said of ambrosia and lotus is true; I little knew how
sumptuous had been your feast. I have listened to you with strange
emotion, and now that you have ceased, I feel oppressed, nay, in your
own language, 'sore stricken. ' This need not surprise you. A person
who has been bitten by a mad dog not only goes mad himself, you know,
but communicates his madness to any one whom he bites whilst he is in
that state, so that the infection may be carried on by this means
through a long succession of persons.

_Luc_. Ah, then you confess to a tenderness?

_Fr_. I do; and beg that you will think upon some medicine for both
our wounded breasts.

_Luc_. We must take a hint from Telephus.

_Fr_. What is that?

_Luc_. We want a hair of the dog that bit us.

F.




TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS


Archon, Aristarchus of Phalerum. Seventh Pyanepsion. Court of the
Seven Vowels. Action for assault with robbery. Sigma _v_. Tau.
Plaintiff's case--that the words in-pp-are wrongfully withheld from
him.

Vowels of the jury. --For some time this Mr. Tau's trespasses and
encroachments on my property were of minor importance; I made no claim
for damages, and affected unconsciousness of what I heard; my
conciliatory temper both you and the other letters have reason to
know. His covetousness and folly, however, have now so puffed him up,
that he is no longer content with my habitual concessions, but insists
on more; I accordingly find myself compelled to get the matter settled
by you who know both sides of it. The fact is, I am in bodily fear,
owing to the crushing to which I am subjected. This evergrowing
aggression will end by ousting me completely from my own; I shall be
almost dumb, lose my rank as a letter, and be degraded to a mere
noise.

Justice requires then that not merely you, the jury in this case, but
the other letters also, should be on your guard against such attempts.
If any one who chooses is to be licensed to leave his own place and
usurp that of others, with no objection on your part (whose
concurrence is an indispensable condition of all writing), I fail to
see how combinations are to have their ancient constitutional rights
secured to them. But my first reliance is upon you, who will surely
never be guilty of the negligence and indifference which permits
injustice; and even if you decline the contest, I have no intention of
sitting down under that injustice myself.

It is much to be regretted that the assaults of other letters were not
repelled when they first began their lawless practices; then we should
not be watching the still pending dispute between Lambda and Rho for
possession of _kephalalgia_ or _kephalargia_, _kishlis_ or _kishris_:
Gamma would not have had to defend its rights over _gyaphalla_,
constantly almost at blows with Kappa in the debatable land, and _per
contra_ it would itself have dropped its campaign against Lambda (if
indeed it is more dignified than petty larceny) for converting _molis_
to _mogis_: in fact lawless confusion generally would have been nipped
in the bud. And it is well to abide by the established order; such
trespasses betray a revolutionary spirit.

Now our first legislators--Cadmus the islander, Palamedes, son of
Nauplius, or Simonides, whom some authorities credit with the
measure--were not satisfied with determining merely our order of
precedence in the alphabet; they also had an eye to our individual
qualities and faculties. You, Vowels of the jury, constitute the first
Estate, because you can be uttered independently; the semi-vowels,
requiring support before they can be distinctly heard, are the second;
and the lowest Estate they declared to consist of those nine which
cannot be sounded at all by themselves. The vowels are accordingly the
natural guardians of our laws.

But this--this Tau--I would give him a worse designation, but that is
a manifest impossibility; for without the assistance of two good
presentable members of your Estate, Alpha and Upsilon, he would be a
mere nonentity--he it is that has dared to outdo all injuries that I
have ever known, expelling me from the nouns and verbs of my
inheritance, and hunting me out of my conjunctions and prepositions,
till his rapacity has become quite unbearable. I am now to trace
proceedings from the beginning.

I was once staying at Cybelus, a pleasant little town, said to be an
Athenian colony; my travelling companion was the excellent Rho, best
of neighbours. My host was a writer of comedies, called Lysimachus; he
seems to have been a Boeotian by descent, though he represented
himself as coming from the interior of Attica. It was while with him
that I first detected Tau's depredations [Footnote: For the probably
corrupt passage Section 7 fin. --Section 8 init. I accept Dindorf's
rearrangement as follows: mechr men gar oligois epecheirei,
tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de taemeron kai ta homoia epispomenon,
sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti legein, kai oiston aen moi to akousma
kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep autois. 8. hupote d ek touton arxamenon
etolmaese kattiteron eipein kai kattuma kai pittan, eita aperuthriasan
kai basilitgan onomazein, aposteroun me ton suggegenaemenun moi kai
suntethrammenun grammatun, ou metrius ipi toutois aganaktu. ]. For some
earlier occasional attempts (as when he took to tettaroakonta for
tessarakonta, taemeron for saemeron, with little pilferings of that
sort) I had explained as a trick and peculiarity of pronunciation; I
had tolerated the sound without letting it annoy me seriously.

But impunity emboldened him; kassiteros became kattiteros, kassuma and
pissa shared its fate; and then he cast off all shame and assaulted
basigissa. I found myself losing the society in which I had been born
and bred [Footnote: For the probably corrupt passage Section 7 fin. --
Section 8 init. I accept Dindorf's rearrangement as follows: _mechr
men gar oligois epecheirei, tettarakonta legein axioun, eti de
taemeron kai ta homoia epispomenon, sunaetheian thmaen idia tauti
legein, kai oiston aen moi to akousma kai ou panu ti edaknomaen ep
autois_. 8. _hupote d ek touton arxamenon etolmaese kattiteron eipein
kai kattuma kai pittan, eita aperuthriasan kai basilitgan onomazein,
aposteroun me ton suggegenaemenun moi kai suntethrammenun grammatun,
ou metrius ipi toutois aganaktu. </i]; at such a time equanimity is out
of place; I am tortured with apprehension; how long will it be before
_suka_ is _tuka_? Bear with me, I beseech you; I despair and have none
to help me; do I not well to be angry? It is no petty everyday peril,
this threatened separation from my long-tried familiars. My _kissa_,
my talking bird that nestled in my breast, he has torn away and named
anew; my _phassa_, my _nhssai_, my _khossuphoi_--all gone; and I had
Aristarchus's own word that they were mine; half my _melissai_ he has
lured to strange hives; Attica itself he has invaded, and wrongfully
annexed its Hymettus (as he calls it); and you and the rest looked on
at the seizure.

But why dwell on such trifles? I am driven from all Thessaly
(Thettaly, forsooth! ), _thalassa_ is now _mare clausum_ to me; he will
not leave me a poor garden-herb like _seutlion_, I have never a
_passalos_ to hang myself upon. What a long-suffering letter I am
myself, your own knowledge is witness enough. When Zeta stole my
_smaragdos_, and robbed me of all Smyrna, I never took proceedings
against him; Xi might break all _sunthhkai_, and appeal to Thucydides
(who ought to know) as xympathizing with his xystem; I let them alone.
My neighbour Rho I made no difficulty about pardoning as an invalid,
when he transplanted my _mursinai_ into his garden, or, in a fit of
the spleen, took liberties with my _khopsh_. So much for my temper.

Tau's, on the other hand, is naturally violent; its manifestations are
not confined to me. In proof that he has not spared other letters, but
assaulted Delta, Theta, Zeta, and almost the whole alphabet, I wish
his various victims to be put in the box. Now, Vowels of the jury,
mark the evidence of Delta:--'He robbed me of _endelecheia_, which he
claimed, quite illegally, as _entelecheia_. ' Mark Theta beating his
breast and plucking out his hair in grief for the loss of
_kolokunthh_. And Zeta mourns for _surizein_ and _salpizein_--nay,
_cannot_ mourn, for lack of his gryzein. What tolerance is possible,
what penalty adequate, for this criminal letter's iniquities?

But his wrongs are not even limited to us, his own species; he has now
extended his operations to mankind, as I shall show. He does not
permit their tongues to work straight. (But that mention of mankind
calls me back for a moment, reminding me how he turns glossa into
glotta, half robbing me of the tongue itself. Ay, you are a disease of
the tongue in every sense, Tau. ) But I return from that digression, to
plead the cause of mankind and its wrongs. The prisoner's designs
include the constraint, racking, and mutilation of their utterance. A
man sees a beautiful thing, and wishes to describe it as kalon, but in
comes Tau, and forces the man to say talon _he_ must have precedence
everywhere, of course. Another man has something to say about a vine,
and lo, before it is out, it is metamorphosed by this miserable
creature into misery; he has changed slaema to tlaema, with a
suggestive hint of tlaemon. And, not content with middle-class
victims, he aims at the Persian king himself, the one for whom land
and sea are said to have made way and changed their nature: Cyrus
comes out at his bidding as Tyrus.

Such are his verbal offences against man; his offences in deed remain.
Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for
introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body
that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they
set up the erections on which men are crucified. Stayros the vile
engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all
these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths?
For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape
--that shape which he gave to the gibbet named Stayros after him by
men.

H.




TIMON THE MISANTHROPE

_Timon. Zeus. Hermes. Plutus. Poverty. Gnathonides. Philiades. Demeas.
Thrasycles. Blepsias_.


_Tim_. O Zeus, thou arbiter of friendship, protector of the guest,
preserver of fellowship, lord of the hearth, launcher of the
lightning, avenger of oaths, compeller of clouds, utterer of thunder
(and pray add any other epithets; those cracked poets have plenty
ready, especially when they are in difficulties with their scansion;
then it is that a string of your names saves the situation and fills
up the metrical gaps), O Zeus, where is now your resplendent
lightning, where your deep-toned thunder, where the glowing, white-
hot, direful bolt? we know now 'tis all fudge and poetic moonshine--
barring what value may attach to the rattle of the names. That
renowned projectile of yours, which ranged so far and was so ready to
your hand, has gone dead and cold, it seems; never a spark left in it
to scorch iniquity.

If men are meditating perjury, a smouldering lamp-wick is as likely to
frighten them off it as the omnipotent's levin-bolt; the brand you
hold over them is one from which they see neither flame nor smoke can
come; a little soot-grime is the worst that need be apprehended from a
touch of it. No wonder if Salmoneus challenged you to a
thundering-match; he was reasonable enough when he backed his
artificial heat against so cool-tempered a Zeus. Of course he was;
there are you in your opiate-trance, never hearing the perjurers nor
casting a glance at criminals, your glazed eyes dull to all that
happens, and your ears as deaf as a dotard's.

When you were young and keen, and your temper had some life in it, you
used to bestir yourself against crime and violence; there were no
armistices in those days; the thunderbolt was always hard at it, the
aegis quivering, the thunder rattling, the lightning engaged in a
perpetual skirmish. Earth was shaken like a sieve, buried in snow,
bombarded with hail. It rained cats and dogs (if you will pardon my
familiarity), and every shower was a waterspout. Why, in Deucalion's
time, hey presto, everything was swamped, mankind went under, and just
one little ark was saved, stranding on the top of Lycoreus and
preserving a remnant of human seed for the generation of greater
wickedness.

Mankind pays you the natural wages of your laziness; if any one offers
you a victim or a garland nowadays, it is only at Olympia as a
perfunctory accompaniment of the games; he does it not because he
thinks it is any good, but because he may as well keep up an old
custom. It will not be long, most glorious of deities, before they
serve you as you served Cronus, and depose you. I will not rehearse
all the robberies of your temple--those are trifles; but they have
laid hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you
had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely
they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they
had finished packing up the swag. But there sat the bold Giant-slayer
and Titan-conqueror letting them cut his hair, with a fifteen-foot
thunderbolt in his hand all the time! My good sir, when is this
careless indifference to cease? how long before you will punish such
wickedness? Phaethon-falls and Deucalion-deluges--a good many of them
will be required to suppress this swelling human insolence.

To leave generalities and illustrate from my own case--I have raised
any number of Athenians to high position, I have turned poor men into
rich, I have assisted every one that was in want, nay, flung my wealth
broadcast in the service of my friends, and now that profusion has
brought me to beggary, they do not so much as know me; I cannot get a
glance from the men who once cringed and worshipped and hung upon my
nod. If I meet one of them in the street, he passes me by as he might
pass the tombstone of one long dead; it has fallen face upwards,
loosened by time, but he wastes no moment deciphering it. Another will
take the next turning when he sees me in the distance; I am a sight of
ill omen, to be shunned by the man whose saviour and benefactor I had
been not so long ago.

Thus in disgrace with fortune, I have betaken me to this corner of the
earth, where I wear the smock-frock and dig for sixpence a day, with
solitude and my spade to assist meditation. So much gain I reckon upon
here--to be exempt from contemplating unmerited prosperity; no sight
that so offends the eye as that. And now, Son of Cronus and Rhea, may
I ask you to shake off that deep sound sleep of yours--why,
Epimenides's was a mere nap to it--, put the bellows to your
thunderbolt or warm it up in Etna, get it into a good blaze, and give
a display of spirit, like a manly vigorous Zeus? or are we to believe
the Cretans, who show your grave among their sights?

_Zeus_. Hermes, who is that calling out from Attica? there, on the
lower slopes of Hymettus--a grimy squalid fellow in a smock-frock;
he is bending over a spade or something; but he has a tongue in his
head, and is not afraid to use it. He must be a philosopher, to judge
from his fluent blasphemy.

_Her_. What, father! have you forgotten Timon--son of Echecratides, of
Collytus? many is the time he has feasted us on unexceptionable
victims; the rich _parvenu_ of the whole hecatombs, you know, who used
to do us so well at the Diasia.

_Zeus_. Dear, dear, _quantum mutatus_! is this the admired, the rich,
the popular? What has brought him to this pass? There he is in filth
and misery, digging for hire, labouring at that ponderous spade.

_Her_. Why, if you like to put it so, it was kindness and generosity
and universal compassion that ruined him; but it would be nearer the
truth to call him a fool and a simpleton and a blunderer; he did not
realize that his proteges were carrion crows and wolves; vultures were
feeding on his unfortunate liver, and he took them for friends and
good comrades, showing a fine appetite just to please him. So they
gnawed his bones perfectly clean, sucked out with great precision any
marrow there might be in them, and went off, leaving him as dry as a
tree whose roots have been severed; and now they do not know him or
vouchsafe him a nod--no such fools--, nor ever think of showing him
charity or repaying his gifts. That is how the spade and smock-frock
are accounted for; he is ashamed to show his face in town; so he hires
himself out to dig, and broods over his wrongs--the rich men he has
made passing him contemptuously by, apparently quite unaware that his
name is Timon.

_Zeus_. This is a case we must take up and see to. No wonder he is
down on his luck. We should be putting ourselves on the level of his
despicable sycophants, if we forgot all the fat ox and goat thighs he
has burnt on our altars; the savour of them is yet in my nostrils. But
I have been so busy, there is such a din of perjury, assault, and
burglary; I am so frightened of the temple-robbers--they swarm now,
you cannot keep them out, nor take a nap with any safety; and, with
one thing and another, it is an age since I had a look at Attica. I
have hardly been there since philosophy and argument came into
fashion; indeed, with their shouting-matches going on, prayers are
quite inaudible. One must sit with one's ears plugged, if one does not
want the drums of them cracked; such long vociferous rigmaroles about
Incorporeal Things, or something they call Virtue! That is how we came
to neglect this man--who really deserved better.

However, go to him now without wasting any more time, Hermes, and take
Plutus with you. Thesaurus is to accompany Plutus, and they are both
to stay with Timon, and not leave him so lightly this time, even
though the generous fellow does his best to find other hosts for them.
As to those parasites, and the ingratitude they showed him, I will
attend to them before long; they shall have their deserts as soon as I
have got the thunderbolt in order again.
Its two best spikes are
broken and blunted; my zeal outran my discretion the other day when I
took that shot at Anaxagoras the sophist; the Gods non-existent,
indeed! that was what he was telling his disciples. However, I missed
him (Pericles had held up his hand to shield him), and the bolt
glanced off on to the Anaceum, set it on fire, and was itself nearly
pulverized on the rock. But meanwhile it will be quite sufficient
punishment for them to see Timon rolling in money.

_Her_. Nothing like lifting up your voice, making yourself a nuisance,
and showing a bold front; it is equally effective whether you are
pleading with juries or deities. Here is Timon developing from pauper
to millionaire, just because his prayer was loud and free enough to
startle Zeus; if he had dug quietly with his face to his work, he
might have dug to all eternity, for any notice he would have got.

_Pl_. Well, Zeus, I am not going to him.

_Zeus_. Your reason, good Plutus; have I not told you to go?

_Pl_. Good God! why, he insulted me, threw me about, dismembered me--
me, his old family friend--and practically pitchforked me out of the
house; he could not have been in a greater hurry to be rid of me if I
had been a live coal in his hand. What, go there again, to be
transferred to toadies and flatterers and harlots? No, no, Zeus; send
me to people who will appreciate the gift, take care of me, value and
cherish me. Let these gulls consort with the poverty which they prefer
to me; she will find them a smock-frock and a spade, and they can be
thankful for a miserable pittance of sixpence a day, these reckless
squanderers of 1,000 pound presents.

_Zeus_. Ah, Timon will not treat you that way again. If his loins are
not of cast iron, his spade-work will have taught him a thing or two
about your superiority to poverty. You are so particular, you know;
now, you are finding fault with Timon for opening the door to you and
letting you wander at your own sweet will, instead of keeping you in
jealous seclusion. Yesterday it was another story: you were imprisoned
by rich men under bolts and locks and seals, and never allowed a
glimpse of sunlight. That was the burden of your complaint--you were
stifled in deep darkness. We saw you pale and careworn, your fingers
hooked with coin-counting, and heard how you would like to run away,
if only you could get the chance. It was monstrous, then, that you
should be kept in a bronze or iron chamber, like a Danae condemned to
virginity, and brought up by those stern unscrupulous tutors,
Interest, Debit and Credit.

They were perfectly ridiculous, you know, loving you to distraction,
but not daring to enjoy you when they might; you were in their power,
yet they could not give the reins to their passion; they kept awake
watching you with their eyes glued to bolt and seal; the enjoyment
that satisfied them was not to enjoy you themselves, but to prevent
others' enjoying you--true dogs in the manger. Yes, and then how
absurd it was that they should scrape and hoard, and end by being
jealous of their own selves! Ah, if they could but see that rascally
slave--steward--trainer--sneaking in bent on carouse! little enough
_he_ troubles his head about the luckless unamiable owner at his
nightly accounts by a dim little half-fed lamp. How, pray, do you
reconcile your old strictures of this sort with your contrary
denunciation of Timon?

_Pl_. Oh, if you consider the thing candidly, you will find both
attitudes reasonable. It is clear enough that Timon's utter negligence
comes from slackness, and not from any consideration for me. As for
the other sort, who keep me shut up in the obscurity of strong-boxes,
intent on making me heavy and fat and unwieldy, never touching me
themselves, and never letting me see the light, lest some one else
should catch sight of me, I always thought of them as fools and
tyrants; what harm had I done that they should let me rot in close
confinement? and did not they know that in a little while they would
pass away and have to resign me to some other lucky man?

No, give me neither these nor the off-hand gentry; my beau ideal is
the man who steers a middle course, as far from complete abstention as
from utter profusion. Consider, Zeus, by your own great name; suppose
a man were to take a fair young wife, and then absolutely decline all
jealous precautions, to the point of letting her wander where she
would by day or night, keeping company with any one who had a mind to
her--or put it a little stronger, and let him be procurer, janitor,
pander, and advertiser of her charms in his own person--well, what
sort of love is his? come, Zeus, you have a good deal of experience,
you know what love is.

On the other hand, let a man make a suitable match for the express
purpose of raising heirs, and then let him neither himself have
anything to do with her ripe, yet modest, beauty, nor allow any other
to set eyes on it, but shut her up in barren, fruitless virginity; let
him say all the while that he is in love with her, and let his pallid
hue, his wasting flesh and his sunken eyes confirm the statement;--is
he a madman, or is he not? he should be raising a family and enjoying
matrimony; but he lets this fair-faced lovely girl wither away; he
might as well be bringing up a perpetual priestess of Demeter. And now
you understand my feelings when one set of people kick me about or
waste me by the bucketful, and the others clap irons on me like a
runaway convict.

_Zeus_. However, indignation is superfluous; both sets have just what
they deserve--one as hungry and thirsty and dry-mouthed as Tantalus,
getting no further than gaping at the gold; and the other finding its
food swept away from its very gullet, as the Harpies served Phineus.
Come, be off with you; you will find Timon has much more sense
nowadays.

_Pl_. Oh, of course! he will not do his best to let me run out of a
leaky vessel before I have done running in! oh no, he will not be
consumed with apprehensions of the inflow's gaining on the waste and
flooding him! I shall be supplying a cask of the Danaids; no matter
how fast I pour in, the thing will not hold water; every gallon will
be out almost before it is in; the bore of the waste-pipe is so large,
and never a plug.

_Zeus_. Well, if he does not stop the hole--if the leak is more than
temporary--you will run out in no time, and he can find his
smock-frock and spade again in the dregs of the cask. Now go along,
both of you, and make the man rich. And, Hermes, on your way back,
remember to bring the Cyclopes with you from Etna; my thunderbolt
wants the grindstone; and I have work for it as soon as it is sharp.

_Her_. Come along, Plutus. Hullo! limping? My good man, I did not know
you were lame as well as blind.

_Pl_. No, it is intermittent. As sure as Zeus sends me _to_ any one, a
sort of lethargy comes over me, my legs are like lead, and I can
hardly get to my journey's end; my destined host is sometimes an old
man before I reach him. As a parting guest, on the other hand, you may
see me wing my way swifter than any dream. 'Are you ready? ' and almost
before 'Go' has sounded, up goes my name as winner; I have flashed
round the course absolutely unseen sometimes.

_Her_. You are not quite keeping to the truth; I could name you plenty
of people who yesterday had not the price of a halter to hang
themselves with, and to-day have developed into lavish men of fortune;
they drive their pair of high-steppers, whereas a donkey would have
been beyond their means before. They go about in purple raiment with
jewelled fingers, hardly convinced yet that their wealth is not all a
dream.

_Pl_. Ah, those are special cases, Hermes. I do not go on my own feet
on those occasions, and it is not Zeus who sends me, but Pluto, who
has his own ways of conferring wealth and making presents; Pluto and
Plutus are not unconnected, you see. When I am to flit from one house
to another, they lay me on parchment, seal me up carefully, make a
parcel of me and take me round. The dead man lies in some dark corner,
shrouded from the knees upward in an old sheet, with the cats fighting
for possession of him, while those who have expectations wait for me
in the public place, gaping as wide as young swallows that scream for
their mother's return.

Then the seal is taken off, the string cut, the parchment opened, and
my new owner's name made known. It is a relation, or a parasite, or
perhaps a domestic minion, whose value lay in his vices and his smooth
cheeks; he has continued to supply his master with all sorts of
unnatural pleasures beyond the years which might excuse such service,
and now the fine fellow is richly rewarded. But whoever it is, he
snatches me up, parchment included, and is off with me in a flash; he
used to be called Pyrrhias or Dromo or Tibius, but now he is Megacles,
Megabyzus, or Protarchus; off he goes, leaving the disappointed ones
staring at each other in very genuine mourning-over the fine fish
which has jumped out of the landing-net after swallowing their good
bait.

The fellow who _has_ pounced on me has neither taste nor feeling; the
sight of fetters still gives him a start; crack a whip in his
neighbourhood, and his ears tingle; the treadmill is an abode of awe
to him. He is now insufferable--insults his new equals, and whips his
old fellows to see what that side of the transaction feels like. He
ends by finding a mistress, or taking to the turf, or being cajoled by
parasites; these have only to swear he is handsomer than Nireus,
nobler than Cecrops or Codrus, wiser than Odysseus, richer than a
dozen Croesuses rolled into one; and so the poor wretch disperses in a
moment what cost so many perjuries, robberies, and swindles to amass.

_Her_. A very fair picture. But when you go on your own feet, how can
a blind man like you find the way? Zeus sends you to people who he
thinks deserve riches; but how do you distinguish them?

_Pl_. Do you suppose I do find them? not much. I should scarcely have
passed Aristides by, and gone to Hipponicus, Callias, and any number
of other Athenians whose merits could have been valued in copper.

_Her_. Well, but what do you do when he sends you?

_Pl_. I just wander up and down till I come across some one; the first
comer takes me off home with him, and thanks--whom but the God of
windfalls, yourself?

_Her_. So Zeus is in error, and you do not enrich deserving persons
according to his pleasure?

_Pl_. My dear fellow, how can he expect it? He knows I am blind, and
he sends me groping about for a thing so hard to detect, and so nearly
extinct this long time, that a Lynceus would have his work cut out
spying for its dubious remains. So you see, as the good are few, and
cities are crowded with multitudes of the bad, I am much more likely
to come upon the latter in my rambles, and they keep me in their nets.

_Her_. But when you are leaving them, how do you find escape so easy?
you do not know the way.

_Pl_. Ah, there is just one occasion which brings me quickness of eye
and foot; and that is flight.

_Her_. Yet another question. You are not only blind (excuse my
frankness), but pallid and decrepit; how comes it, then, that you have
so many lovers? All men's looks are for you; if they get possession of
you, they count themselves happy men; if they miss you, life is not
worth living. Why, I have known not a few so sick for love of you that
they have scaled some sky-pointing crag, and thence hurled themselves
to unplumbed ocean depths [Footnote: See Apology for 'The Dependent
Scholar,'], when they thought they were scorned by you, because you
would not acknowledge their first salute. I am sure you know yourself
well enough to confess that they must be lunatics, to rave about such
charms as yours.

_Pl_. Why, you do not suppose they see me in my true shape, lame,
blind, and so forth?

_Her_. How else, unless they are all as blind themselves?

_Pl_. They are not blind, my dear boy; but the ignorant misconceptions
now so prevalent obscure their vision. And then I contribute; not to
be an absolute fright when they see me, I put on a charming mask, all
gilt and jewels, and dress myself up. They take the mask for my face,
fall in love with its beauty, and are dying to possess it. If any one
were to strip and show me to them naked, they would doubtless reproach
themselves for their blindness in being captivated by such an ugly
misshapen creature,

_Her_. How about fruition, then? When they are rich, and have put the
mask on themselves, they are still deluded; if any one tries to take
it off, they would sooner part with their heads than with it; and it
is not likely they do not know by that time that the beauty is
adventitious, now that they have an inside view. _Pl_. There too I
have powerful allies.

_Her_. Namely--?

_Pl_. When a man makes my acquaintance, and opens the door to let me
in, there enter unseen by my side Arrogance, Folly, Vainglory,
Effeminacy, Insolence, Deceit, and a goodly company more. These
possess his soul; he begins to admire mean things, pursues what he
should abhor, reveres me amid my bodyguard of the insinuating vices
which I have begotten, and would consent to anything sooner than part
with me.

_Her_. What a smooth, slippery, unstable, evasive fellow you are,
Plutus! there is no getting a firm hold of you; you wriggle through
one's fingers somehow, like an eel or a snake. Poverty is so
different--sticky, clinging, all over hooks; any one who comes near
her is caught directly, and finds it no simple matter to get clear.
But all this gossip has put business out of our heads.

_Pl_. Business? What business?

_Her_. We have forgotten to bring Thesaurus, and we cannot do without
him.

_Pl_. Oh, never mind him. When I come up to see you, I leave him on
earth, with strict orders to stay indoors, and open to no one unless
he hears my voice.

_Her_. Then we may make our way into Attica; hold on to my cloak till
I find Timon's retreat.

_Pl_. It is just as well to keep touch; if you let me drop behind, I
am as likely as not to be snapped up by Hyperbolus or Cleon. But what
is that noise? it sounds like iron on stone.

_Her_. Ah, here is Timon close to us; what a steep stony little plot
he has got to dig! Good gracious, I see Poverty and Toil in
attendance, Endurance, Wisdom, Courage, and Hunger's whole company in
full force--much more efficient than your guards, Plutus.

_Pl_. Oh dear, let us make the best of our way home, Hermes. We shall
never produce any impression on a man surrounded by such troops.

_Her_. Zeus thought otherwise; so no cowardice.

_Pov_. Slayer of Argus, whither away, you two hand in hand?

_Her_. Zeus has sent us to Timon here.

_Pov_. Now? What has Plutus to do with Timon now? I found him
suffering under Luxury's treatment, put him in the charge of Wisdom
and Toil (whom you see here), and made a good worthy man of him. Do
you take me for such a contemptible helpless creature that you can rob
me of my little all? have I perfected him in virtue, only to see
Plutus take him, trust him to Insolence and Arrogance, make him as
soft and limp and silly as before, and return him to me a worn-out rag
again?

_Her_. It is Zeus's will.

_Pov_. I am off, then. Toil, Wisdom, and the rest of you, quick march!
Well, he will realize his loss before long; he had a good help meet in
me, and a true teacher; with me he was healthy in body and vigorous in
spirit; he lived the life of a man, and could be independent, and see
the thousand and one needless refinements in all their absurdity.

_Her_. There they go, Plutus; let us come to him.

_Tim_. Who are you, villains? What do you want here, interrupting a
hired labourer? You shall have something to take with you, confound
you all! These clods and stones shall provide you with a broken head
or two.

_Her_. Stop, Timon, don't throw. We are not men; I am Hermes, and this
is Plutus; Zeus has sent us in answer to your prayers. So knock off
work, take your fortune, and much good may it do you!

_Tim_. I dare say you _are_ Gods; that shall not save you. I hate
every one, man or God; and as for this blind fellow, whoever he may
be, I am going to give him one over the head with my spade.

_Pl_. For God's sake, Hermes, let us get out of this! the man is
melancholy-mad, I believe; he will do me a mischief before I get off.

_Her_. Now don't be foolish, Timon; cease overdoing the ill-tempered
boor, hold out your hands, take your luck, and be a rich man again.
Have Athens at your feet, and from your solitary eminence you can
forget ingratitude.

_Tim_. I have no use for you; leave me in peace; my spade is riches
enough for me; for the rest, I am perfectly happy if people will let
me alone.

_Her_. My dear sir--so unsociable?

So stiff and stubborn a reply to Zeus?

A misanthrope you may well be, after the way men have treated you; but
with the Gods so thoughtful for you, you need not be a misotheist.

_Tim_. Very well, Hermes; I am extremely obliged to you and Zeus for
your thoughtfulness--there; but I will not have Plutus.

_Her_. Why, pray?

_Tim_. He brought me countless troubles long ago--put me in the power
of flatterers, set designing persons on me, stirred up ill-feeling,
corrupted me with indulgence, exposed me to envy, and wound up with
treacherously deserting me at a moment's notice. Then the excellent
Poverty gave me a drilling in manly labour, conversed with me in all
frankness and sincerity, rewarded my exertions with a sufficiency, and
taught me to despise superfluities; all hopes of a livelihood were to
depend on myself, and I was to know my true wealth, unassailable by
parasites' flattery or informers' threats, hasty legislatures or
decree-mongering legislators, and which even the tyrant's machinations
cannot touch.