No More Learning

To Swift he wrote, indeed, "They wonder at
each other for not providing for me, and I wonder at them all. "
Yet, for the nine years from 1722 to 1731 he had a small official
salary, on which a thriftier or more industrious mortal would have
managed to live respectably even in that expensive age; and for at
least a part of the time he had official lodgings at Whitehall.
In 1725 was published the first edition of his famous 'Fables,'
which had been written for the moral behoof of Prince William,
afterward Duke of Cumberland, of unblessed memory. The book did
not make his fortune with the court, as he had hoped, and in 1723
he produced his best known work, The Beggar's Opera. ' Nobody
had much faith in this "Newgate Pastoral," least of all Swift, who
had first suggested it. But it took the town by storm, running for
sixty-three consecutive nights. As the heroine, Polly Peachum, the
lovely Lavinia Fenton captured a duchess's coronet. The songs were
heard alike in West End drawing-rooms and East End slums. Swift
praised it for its morality, and the Archbishop of Canterbury scored


## p. 6240 (#210) ###########################################

6240
JOHN GAY
it for its condonation of vice. The breath of praise and blame filled
equally its prosperous sails, blew it all over the kingdom wherever a
theatre could be found, and finally wafted it to Minorca. So well did
the opera pay him that Gay wrote a sequel called 'Polly,' which,
being prohibited through some notion of Walpole's, sold enormously
by subscription and earned Gay £1,200.
After this the hospitable Queensberrys seem to have adopted him.
He produced a musical drama, 'Acis and Galatea,' written long be-
fore and set to Handel's music; a few more 'Fables'; a thin opera
called 'Achilles'; and then his work was done. He died in London
of a swift fever, in December 1732, before his kind Kitty and her
husband could reach him, or his other great friend, the Countess of
Suffolk. Arbuthnot watched over him; Pope was with him to the
last; Swift indorsed on the letter that brought him the tidings, “On
my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received on December 15th, but not
read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune. "
So
faithfully did the "giants," as Thackeray calls them, cherish this
gentle, friendly, affectionate, humorous comrade. He seems indeed
to have been almost the only companion with whom Swift did not at
some time fall out, and of his steadfastness the gloomy great man in
his 'Verses on my Own Death' could write:-
"Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day. "
The Trivia and the Shepherd's Week,' the 'Acis and Galatea'
and even the 'Beggar's Opera,' gradually faded into the realm of
"old, forgotten, far-off things"; while the 'Fables' passed through
many editions, found their place in school reading-books, were com-
mitted to memory by three generations of admiring pupils, and in-
Icluded in the most orthodox libraries. Yet criticism now reverts to
the earlier standard; approves the songs, and the minute observation,
the nice phrasing, and the humorous swing of the pastorals and
operas, and finds the fables dull, commonplace, and monotonous.
Pope said in his affectionate epitaph that the poet had been laid in
Westminster Abbey, not for ambition, but-
>
"That the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms, 'Here lies Gay,› »
If to-day the worthy and the good do not know even where he lies,
not the less is he to be gratefully remembered whom the best and
greatest of his own time so much admired, and of whom Pope
and Johnson and Thackeray and Dobson have written with the
warmth of friendship.


## p. 6241 (#211) ###########################################

JOHN GAY
6241
IX-
391
THE HARE AND MANY FRIENDS
From the Fables'
F
RIENDSHIP, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child whom many fathers share
Hath seldom known a father's care.
'Tis thus in friendships: who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.
A Hare, who in a civil way
Complied with everything, like Gay,
Was known by all the bestial train
Who haunt the wood or graze the plain.
Her care was, never to offend,
And ev'ry creature was her friend.
As forth she went at early dawn
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn,
Behind she hears the hunters' cries,
And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies.
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round;
Till fainting in the public way,
Half dead with fear, she gasping lay.
What transport in her bosom grew,
When first the horse appeared in view!
"Let me," says she, "your back ascend,
And owe my safety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight;
To friendship every burden's light. "
The Horse replied:- "Poor honest Puss,
It grieves my heart to see thee thus:
Be comforted, relief is near;
For all your friends are in the rear. "
She next the stately Bull implored;
And thus replied the mighty lord:-
"Since every beast alive can tell
That I sincerely wish you well,
I may, without offense, pretend
To take the freedom of a friend.


## p. 6242 (#212) ###########################################

6242
JOHN GAY
Love calls me hence; a favorite cow
Expects me near yon barley-mow:
And when a lady's in the case,
You know all other things give place.
To leave you thus might seem unkind;
But see, the Goat is just behind. "
The Goat remarked her pulse was high,
Her languid head, her heavy eye;
"My back," says he, "may do you harm:
The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm. "
The Sheep was feeble, and complained
His sides a load of wool sustained:
Said he was slow, confessed his fears;
For hounds eat Sheep, as well as Hares!
She now the trotting Calf addressed,
To save from death a friend distressed.
"Shall I," says he, "of tender age,
In this important care engage?
Older and abler passed you by;
How strong are those! how weak am I!
Should I presume to bear you hence,
Those friends of mine may take offense.
Excuse me then. You know my heart:
But dearest friends, alas! must part.
How shall we all lament! Adieu!
For see, the hounds are just in view. "
THE SICK MAN AND THE ANGEL
From the Fables>
I
IS THERE no hope? the Sick Man said.
The silent doctor shook his head,
And took his leave with signs of sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
When thus the Man with gasping breath:
I feel the chilling wound of death;
Since I must bid the world adieu,
Let me my former life review.
I grant, my bargains well were made,
But all men overreach in trade;
'Tis self-defense in each profession;
Sure, self-defense is no transgression.


## p. 6243 (#213) ###########################################

JOHN GAY
6243
The little portion in my hands,
By good security on lands,
Is well increased. If unawares,
My justice to myself and heirs
Hath let my debtor rot in jail,
For want of good sufficient bail;
If I by writ, or bond, or deed,
Reduced a family to need,-
My will hath made the world amends;
My hope on charity depends.
When I am numbered with the dead,
And all my pious gifts are read,
By heaven and earth 'twill then be known,
My charities were amply shown.
An Angel came. Ah, friend! he cried,
No more in flattering hope confide.
Can thy good deeds in former times
Outweigh the balance of thy crimes?
What widow or what orphan prays
To crown thy life with length of days?
A pious action's in thy power;
Embrace with joy the happy hour.
Now, while you draw the vital air,
Prove your intention is sincere:
This instant give a hundred pound;
Your neighbors want, and you abound.
But why such haste? the Sick Man whines:
Who knows as yet what Heaven designs?
Perhaps I may recover still;
That sum and more are in my will.
Fool, says the Vision, now 'tis plain,
Your life, your soul, your heaven was gain;
From every side, with all your might,
You scraped, and scraped beyond your right;
And after death would fain atone,
By giving what is not your own.
Where there is life there's hope, he cried;
Then why such haste? -
so groaned and died.
――


## p. 6244 (#214) ###########################################

6244
JOHN GAY
A
THE JUGGLER
From the Fables'
JUGGLER long through all the town
Had raised his fortune and renown;
You'd think (so far his art transcends)
The Devil at his fingers' ends.
Vice heard his fame; she read his bill;
Convinced of his inferior skill,
She sought his booth, and from the crowd
Defied the man of art aloud.
Is this, then, he so famed for sleight?
Can this slow bungler cheat your sight?
Dares he with me dispute the prize?
I leave it to impartial eyes.
Provoked, the Juggler cried, 'Tis done.
In science I submit to none.
Thus said, the cups and balls he played;
By turns, this here, that there, conveyed.
The cards, obedient to his words,
Are by a fillip turned to birds.
His little boxes change the grain;
Trick after trick deludes the train.
He shakes his bag, he shows all fair;
His fingers spreads, and nothing there;
Then bids it rain with showers of gold,
And now his ivory eggs are told.
But when from thence the hen he draws,
Amazed spectators hum applause.
Vice now stept forth, and took the place
With all the forms of his grimace.
This magic looking-glass, she cries
(There, hand it round), will charm your eyes.
Each eager eye the sight desired,
And ev'ry man himself admired.
Next to a senator addressing:
See this bank-note; observe the blessing,
Breathe on the bill. Heigh, pass! 'Tis gone;
Upon his lips a padlock shone.
A second puff the magic broke,
The padlock vanished, and he spoke.
Twelve bottles ranged upon the board,
All full, with heady liquor stored,


## p. 6245 (#215) ###########################################

JOHN GAY
6245
By clean conveyance disappear,
And now two bloody swords are there.
A purse she to a thief exposed,
At once his ready fingers closed:
He opes his fist, the treasure's fled:
He sees a halter in its stead.
She bids ambition hold a wand;
He grasps a hatchet in his hand.
A box of charity she shows:
Blow here; and a churchwarden blows.
'Tis vanished with conveyance neat,
And on the table smokes a treat.
She shakes the dice, the board she knocks,
And from her pockets fills her box.
A counter in a miser's hand
Grew twenty guineas at command.
She bids his heir the sum retain,
And 'tis a counter now again.
A guinea with her touch you see
Take ev'ry shape but Charity;
And not one thing you saw, or drew,
But changed from what was first in view.
The Juggler now, in grief of heart,
With this submission owned her art.
Can I such matchless sleight withstand?
How practice hath improved your hand!
But now and then I cheat the throng;
You every day, and all day long.
SWEET WILLIAM'S FAREWELL TO BLACK-EYED SUSAN
A BALLAD
LL in the Downs the fleet was moored,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When black-eyed Susan came aboard:
Oh, where shall I my true love find!
Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true,
If my sweet William sails among the crew.
A
William, who high upon the yard
Rocked with the billow to and fro,


## p. 6246 (#216) ###########################################

6246
JOHN GAY
Soon as her well-known voice he heard,
He sighed and cast his eyes below;
The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands,
And quick as lightning on the deck he stands.
So the sweet lark, high poised in air,
Shuts close his pinions to his breast
(If, chance, his mate's shrill call he hear),
And drops at once into her nest.
The noblest captain in the British fleet
Might envy William's lip those kisses sweet.
O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,
My vows shall ever true remain;
Let me kiss off that falling tear;
We only part to meet again.
Change, as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be
The faithful compass that still points to thee.
Believe not what the landmen say,
Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind:
They'll tell thee, sailors when away
In every port a mistress find.
Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,
For thou art present wheresoe'er I go.
If to far India's coast we sail,
Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright;
Thy breath is Afric's spicy gale,
Thy skin is ivory so white.
Thus every beauteous object that I view,
Wakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue.
Though battle call me from thy arms,
Let not my pretty Susan mourn;
Though cannons roar, yet safe from harms,
William shall to his dear return.
Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,
Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye.
The boatswain gave the dreadful word;
The sails their swelling bosom spread;
No longer must she stay aboard:
They kissed, she sighed, he hung his head:
Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land:
Adieu! she cries; and waved her lily hand.


## p. 6247 (#217) ###########################################

JOHN GAY
6247
FROM WHAT D'YE CALL IT? >
A BALLAD
'TWAS
WAS when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring,
All on a rock reclined.
Wide o'er the foaming billows
She cast a wistful look;
Her head was crowned with willows,
That tremble o'er the brook.
"Twelve months are gone and over,
And nine long tedious days;
Why didst thou, venturous lover,
Why didst thou trust the seas?
Cease, cease, thou cruel ocean,
And let my lover rest:
Ah! what's thy troubled motion
To that within my breast?
"The merchant robbed of pleasure
Sees tempests in despair;
But what's the loss of treasure,
To losing of my dear?
Should you some coast be laid on,
Where gold and diamonds grow,
You'll find a richer maiden,
But none that loves you so.
"How can they say that nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why then, beneath the water,
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the rocks discover
That lurk beneath the deep,
To wreck the wandering lover,
And leave the maid to weep. "
All melancholy lying,
Thus wailed she for her dear!
Repaid each blast with sighing,
Each billow with a tear.
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spied,-
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bowed her head and died.


## p. 6248 (#218) ###########################################

6248
EMANUEL VON GEIBEL
(1815-1884)
HE chief note in Geibel's nature was reverence.
A spirit of
reverent piety, using the phrase in its widest as well as in
its strictly religious sense, characterizes all his poetical
utterances. He intended to devote himself to theology, but the hu-
manistic tendencies of the age, combined with his own peculiar
endowments, led him to abandon the Church for pure literature.
The reverent attitude of mind, however, remained, and has left its
impress even upon his most impassioned love lyrics. It appears too
in his first literary venture, a volume of
'Classical Studies' undertaken in collabo-
ration with his friend Ernst Curtius, in
which is displayed his loving reverence for
the great monuments of Greek antiquity.
He felt himself an exile from Greece, and
like Goethe's Iphigenia, his soul was seek-
ing ever for the land of Hellas. And
through the influence of Bettina von Arnim
this longing was satisfied; he secured the
post of tutor in the household of the Rus-
sian ambassador to Athens.

EMANUEL VON GEIBEL
Geibel was only twenty-three years of
age when this good fortune fell to his lot.
He was born at Lübeck on October 18th,
1815. His poetic gifts, early manifested, secured him a welcome in
the literary circles of Berlin. During the two years that he spent in
Greece he was enabled to travel over a large part of the Grecian
Archipelago in the inspiring company of Curtius; and it was upon
their return to Germany in 1840 that the Classical Studies' appeared,
and were dedicated to the Queen of Greece. Then Geibel eagerly
took up the study of French and Spanish, with the result that many
valuable volumes were published in collaboration with Paul Heyse,
Count von Schack, and Leuthold, which introduced to the German
public a vast treasury of song from the literatures of France, Spain,
and Portugal. The first collection of Geibel's own poems in 1843
secured for the poet a modest pension from the King of Prussia.
Geibel also made several essays at dramatic composition. He wrote
for Mendelssohn the text of a 'Lorelei,' but the composer died before


## p. 6249 (#219) ###########################################

EMANUEL VON GEIBEL
6249
the music was completed. A comedy called 'Master Andrew' was
successful in a number of cities; and of his more ambitious tragedies,
'Brunhild' and 'Sophonisba,' the latter won the famous Schiller prize
in 1869.
In 1852 Geibel received an appointment as royal reader to Maxi-
milian II. , and was made professor at the University of Munich. It
was also from the King of Bavaria that he procured his patent of no-
bility. In the same year that he took up his residence in Munich he
married; but the death of his wife terminated his happy family rela-
tions three years later, and the death of the King severed his con-
nection with the Bavarian court. Moreover, his sympathy with the
revolutionary poets, such as his intimate friend Freiligrath, his own
enthusiasm for the popular movement, and the faith which he placed
in the King of Prussia, led to bitter attacks upon him in the Bavarian
press, and eventually to his resignation from the faculty of the uni-
versity. He returned to his native city of Lübeck. The Prussian
King trebled his annual income, and the poet was raised above pe-
cuniary cares. The last years of his life were saddened, without
being embittered, by feeble health. He died on April 6th, 1884.
There was sometimes a touch of effeminate sentimentality in Gei-
bel's work, but he did not lack force and virility, as his famous
'Twelve Sonnets' and his political poems, entitled 'Zeitgedichte,'
show. He could speak strong words for right and justice, and in all
his poems there is a musical beauty of language and a perfection of
form that render his songs contributions of permanent value to the
lyric treasury of German literature.
SEE'ST THOU THE SEA?
EE'ST thou the sea? The sun gleams on its wave
SEE'S With splendor bright;
But where the pearl lies buried in its cave
Is deepest night.
The sea am I. My soul, in billows bold,
Rolls fierce and strong;
And over all, like to the sunlight's gold,
There streams my song.
It throbs with love and pain as though possessed
Of magic art,
And yet in silence bleeds, within my breast,
My gloomy heart.
Translation of Frances Hellman. Copyright 1892.


## p. 6250 (#220) ###########################################

6250
EMANUEL VON GEIBEL
AS IT WILL HAPPEN
E LOVES thee not! He trifles but with thee! »
They said to her, and then she bowed her
head,
And pearly tears, like roses' dew, wept she.
Oh, that she ever trusted what they said!
For when he came and found his bride in doubt,
"H
Then, from sheer spite, he would not show his sorrow;
He played and laughed and drank, day in, day out,—
To weep from night until the morrow!
'Tis true, an angel whispered in her heart,
"He's faithful still; oh lay thy hand in his! "
And he too felt, 'midst grief and bitter smart,
"She loves thee! After all, thy love she is;
Let but a gentle word pass on each side,
The spell that parts you now will then be broken! "
They came- each looked on each-oh, evil pride! -
That single word remained unspoken!
They parted then. As in a church one oft
Extinguished sees the altar lamps' red fires,
Their light grows dim, then once more flares aloft
In radiance bright, and thereupon expires,-
So died their love; at first lamented o'er,
Then yearned for ardently, and then-forgotten,
Until the thought that they had loved before
Of mere delusion seemed begotten!
But sometimes when the moon shone out at night,
Each started from his couch! Ah, was it not
Bedewed with tears? And tears, too, dimmed their sight,
Because these two had dreamed-I know not what!
And then the dear old times woke in their heart,
Their foolish doubts, their parting, that had driven
Their souls so far, so very far apart,—
Oh God! let both now be forgiven!
Translation of Frances Hellman. Copyright 1892.


## p. 6251 (#221) ###########################################

EMANUEL VON GEIBEL
6251
OH
GONDOLIERA
H, COME to me when through the night
The starry legions ride!
Then o'er the sea, in the moonshine bright,
Our gondola will glide.
The air is soft as a lover's jest,
And gently gleams the light;
The zither sounds, and thy soul is blest
To join in this delight.
Oh, come to me when through the night
The starry legions ride!
Then o'er the sea, in the moonshine bright,
Our gondola will glide.
This is the hour for lovers true,
Darling, like thee and me;
Serenely smile the heavens blue
And calmly sleeps the sea.
And as it sleeps, a glance will say
What speech in vain has tried;
The lips then do not shrink away,
Nor is a kiss denied.
Oh, come to me when through the night
The starry legions ride!
Then o'er the sea, in the moonshine bright,
Our gondola will glide.
Translation of Frances Hellman. Copyright 1892.
THE WOODLAND
HE wood grows denser at each stride;
THE No path more, no trail!
Only murm'ring waters glide
Through tangled ferns and woodland flowers pale.
Ah, and under the great oaks teeming
How soft the moss, the grass, how high!
And the heavenly depth of cloudless sky,
How blue through the leaves it seems to me!
Here I'll sit, resting and dreaming,
Dreaming of thee.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.


## p. 6252 (#222) ###########################################

6252
EMANUEL VON GEIBEL
ONWARD
EASE thy dreaming! Cease thy quailing!
Wander on untiringly.
C
Though thy strength may all seem failing,
Onward! must thy watchword be.
Durst not tarry, though life's roses
Round about thy footsteps throng,
Though the ocean's depth discloses
Sirens with their witching song.
Onward! onward! ever calling
On thy Muse, in life's stern fray,
Till thy fevered brow feels, falling
From above, a golden ray.
Till the verdant wreath victorious
Crown with soothing shade thy brow;
Till the spirit's flames rise glorious
Over thee, with sacred glow.
Onward then, through hostile fire,
Onward through death's agony!
Who to heaven would aspire
Must a valiant warrior be.
AT
Translation of Frances Hellman. Copyright 1892.
AT LAST THE DAYLIGHT FADETH
T LAST the daylight fadeth,
With all its noise and glare;
Refreshing peace pervadeth
The darkness everywhere.
On the fields deep silence hovers;
The woods now wake alone;
What daylight ne'er discovers,
Their songs to the night make known.
And what when the sun is shining
I ne'er can tell to thee,
To whisper it now I am pining,—
Oh, come and hearken to me!
Translation of Frances Hellman. Copyright 1892.


## p. 6253 (#223) ###########################################

6253
AULUS GELLIUS
(SECOND CENTURY A. D. )
ERHAPS Gellius's 'Attic Nights' may claim especial mention
here, as one of the earliest extant forerunners of this
< Library. ' In the original preface (given first among the
citations), Gellius explains very clearly the origin and scope of his
work. It is not, however, a mere scrap-book. There is original mat-
ter in many chapters. In particular, an ethical or philosophic excerpt
has often been framed in a little scene, - doubtless imaginary,— and
cast in the form of a dialogue. We get, even, pleasant glimpses of
autobiography from time to time. The author is not, however, a
deep or forceful character, on the whole. His heart is mostly set on
trifles.
Yet Gellius has been an assiduous student, both in Greece and
Italy; and his book gives us an agreeable, probably an adequate,
view of the fields which are included in the general culture of his
time. Despite its title, the work is chiefly Roman. In history, biog-
raphy, antiquities, grammar, literary criticism, his materials and au-
thors are prevailingly Latin. He is perhaps most widely known and
quoted on early Roman life and usages. Thus, one of his chapters
gives a mass of curious information as to the choice of the Vestal
Virgins. We are also largely indebted to him for citations from lost
authors. We have already quoted under Ennius the sketch, in eigh-
teen hexameters, of a scholar-soldier, believed to be a genial self-
portraiture. These lines are the finest specimen we have of the
'Annales. Similarly, under Cato, we have quoted the chief fragment
of the great Censor's Roman history. For both these treasures we
must thank Gellius. Indeed, throughout the wide fields of Roman
antiquities, history of literature, grammar, etc. , we have to depend
chiefly upon various late Latin scrap-books and compilations, most of
which are not even made up at first hand from creative classical au-
thors. To Gellius, also, the imposing array of writers so constantly
named by him was evidently known chiefly through compendiums
and handbooks. It is suspicious, for instance, that he hardly quotes
a poet within a century of his own time. Repetitions, contradictions,
etc. , are numerous.
Despite its twenty "books" and nearly four hundred (short) chap-
ters, the work is not only light and readable for the most part, but


## p. 6254 (#224) ###########################################

6254
AULUS GELLIUS
quite modest in total bulk: five hundred and fifty pages in the small
page and generous type of Hertz's Teubner text. There is an Eng-
lish translation by Rev. W. Beloe, first printed in 1795, from which
we quote below. Professor Nettleship's (in his 'Essays in Latin Lit-
erature) has no literary quality, but gives a careful analysis of Gel-
lius's subjects and probable sources. There is a revival of interest
in this author in recent years. We decidedly recommend Hertz's at-
tractive volume to any Latin student who wishes to browse beyond
the narrow classical limits.
FROM ATTIC NIGHTS›
ORIGIN AND PLAN OF THE BOOK
MOR
ORE pleasing works than the present may certainly be found:
my object in writing this was to provide my children, as
well as myself, with that kind of amusement in which
they might properly relax and indulge themselves at the inter-
vals from more important business. I have preserved the same
accidental arrangement which I had before used in making the
collection. Whatever book came into my hand, whether it was
Greek or Latin, or whatever I heard that was either worthy of
being recorded or agreeable to my fancy, I wrote down without
distinction and without order. These things I treasured up to
aid my memory, as it were by a store-house of learning; so that
when I wanted to refer to any particular circumstance or word
which I had at the moment forgotten, and the books from which
they were taken happened not to be at hand, I could easily find
and apply it. Thus the same irregularity will appear in these
commentaries as existed in the original annotations, which were
concisely written down without any method or arrangement in
the course of what I at different times had heard or read. As
these observations at first constituted my business and my amuse-
ment through many long winter nights which I spent in Attica,
I have given them the name of 'Attic Nights. '
It is an
old proverb, "A jay has no concern with music, nor a hog with
perfumes: " but that the ill-humor and invidiousness of certain
ill-taught people may be still more exasperated, I shall borrow a
few verses from a chorus of Aristophanes; and what he, a man
of most exquisite humor, proposed as a law to the spectators of
his play, I also recommend to the readers of this volume, that
the vulgar and unhallowed herd, who are averse to the sports of


## p. 6255 (#225) ###########################################

AULUS GELLIUS
6255
the Muses, may not touch nor even approach it.
these:
-
The verses are
SILENT be they, and far from hence remove,
By scenes like ours not likely to improve,
Who never paid the honored Muse her rights,
Who senseless live in wild, impure delights;
I bid them once, I bid them twice begone,
I bid them thrice, in still a louder tone:
Far hence depart, whilst ye with dance and song
Our solemn feast, our tuneful nights prolong.
THE VESTAL VIRGINS
THE writers on the subject of taking a Vestal Virgin, of
whom Labeo Antistius is the most elaborate, have asserted that
no one could be taken who was less than six or more than
ten years old. Neither could she be taken unless both her
father and mother were alive, if she had any defect of voice or
hearing, or indeed any personal blemish, or if she herself or
father had been made free; or if under the protection of her
grandfather, her father being alive; if one or both of her parents
were in actual servitude, or employed in mean occupations. She
whose sister was in this character might plead exemption, as
might she whose father was flamen, augur, one of the fifteen
who had care of the sacred books, or one of the seventeen who
regulated the sacred feasts, or a priest of Mars. Exemption was
also granted to her who was betrothed to a pontiff, and to the
daughter of the sacred trumpeter. Capito Ateius has also ob-
served that the daughter of a man was ineligible who had no
establishment in Italy, and that his daughter might be excused
who had three children. But as soon as a Vestal Virgin is taken,
conducted to the vestibule of Vesta, and delivered to the pontiffs,
she is from that moment removed from her father's authority,
without any form of emancipation or loss of rank, and has also
the right of making her will. No more ancient records remain.
concerning the form and ceremony of taking a virgin, except that
the first virgin was taken by King Numa. But we find a Papian
law which provides that at the will of the supreme pontiff twenty
virgins should be chosen from the people; that these should draw
lots in the public assembly; and that the supreme pontiff might
take her whose lot it was, to become the servant of Vesta. But


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6256
AULUS GELLIUS
this drawing of lots by the Papian law does not now seem neces-
sary; for if any person of ingenuous birth goes to the pontiff
and offers his daughter for this ministry, if she may be accepted
without any violation of what the ceremonies of religion enjoin,
the Senate dispenses with the Papian law. Moreover, a virgin is
said to be taken, because she is taken by the hand of the high
priest from that parent under whose authority she is, and led
away as a captive in war. In the first book of Fabius Pictor, we
have the form of words which the supreme pontiff is to repeat
when he takes a virgin. It is this:
"I take thee, beloved, as a priestess of Vesta, to perform
religious service, to discharge those duties with respect to the
whole body of the Roman people which the law most wisely
requires of a priestess of Vesta. "
It is also said in those commentaries of Labeo which he wrote
on the Twelve Tables:-
"No Vestal Virgin can be heiress to any intestate person of
either sex. Such effects are said to belong to the public. It is
inquired by what right this is done? " When taken she is called
amata, or beloved, by the high priest; because Amata is said to
have been the name of her who was first taken.
―――――――
THE SECRETS OF THE SENATE
IT WAS formerly usual for the senators of Rome to enter
the Senate-house accompanied by their sons who had taken the
prætexta. When something of superior importance was discussed
in the Senate, and the further consideration adjourned to the day
following, it was resolved that no one should divulge the subject.
of their debates till it should be formally decreed. The mother
of the young Papirius, who had accompanied his father to the
Senate-house, inquired of her son what the senators had been
doing. The youth replied that he had been enjoined silence, and
was not at liberty to say. The woman became more anxious to
know; the secretness of the thing, and the silence of the youth,
did but inflame her curiosity. She therefore urged him with
more vehement earnestness. The young man, on the importunity
of his mother, determined on a humorous and pleasant fallacy:
he said it was discussed in the Senate, which would be most
beneficial to the State- for one man to have two wives, or for
one woman to have two husbands. As soon as she heard this
-


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AULUS GELLIUS
6257
she was much agitated, and leaving her house in great trepida-
tion, went to tell the other matrons what she had learned. The
next day a troop of matrons went to the Senate-house, and with
tears and entreaties implored that one woman might be suffered
to have two husbands, rather than one man to have two wives.
The senators on entering the house were astonished, and won-
dered what this intemperate proceeding of the women, and their
petition, could mean. The young Papirius, advancing to the
midst of the Senate, explained the pressing importunity of his
mother, his answer, and the matter as it was. The Senate,
delighted with the honor and ingenuity of the youth, made a
decree that from that time no youth should be suffered to enter
the Senate with his father, this Papirius alone excepted.
-
PLUTARCH AND HIS SLAVE
PLUTARCH once ordered a slave, who was an impudent and
worthless fellow, but who had paid some attention to books and
philosophical disputations, to be stripped (I know not for what
fault) and whipped. As soon as his punishment began, he averred
that he did not deserve to be beaten; that he had been guilty of
no offense or crime. As they went on whipping him, he called
out louder, not with any cry of suffering or complaint, but gravely
reproaching his master. Such behavior, he said, was unworthy of
Plutarch; that anger disgraced a philosopher; that he had often
disputed on the mischiefs of anger; that he had written a very
excellent book about not giving place to anger; but that what-
ever he had said in that book was now contradicted by the furi-
ous and ungovernable anger with which he had now ordered him.
to be severely beaten. Plutarch then replied with deliberate calm-
ness: "But why, rascal, do I now seem to you to be in anger?
Is it from my countenance, my voice, my color, or my words, that
you conceive me to be angry? I cannot think that my eyes be-
tray any ferocity, nor is my countenance disturbed or my voice
boisterous; neither do I foam at the mouth, nor are my cheeks
red; nor do I say anything indecent or to be repented of; nor
do I tremble or seem greatly agitated. These, though you may
not know it, are the usual signs of anger. " Then, turning to the
person who was whipping him: "Whilst this man and I," said
he, "are disputing, do you go on with your employment. "
XI-392


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6258
AULUS GELLIUS
DISCUSSION ON ONE OF SOLON'S LAWS
IN THOSE Very ancient laws of Solon which were inscribed at
Athens on wooden tables, and which, from veneration to him,
the Athenians, to render eternal, had sanctioned with punish-
ments and religious oaths, Aristotle relates there was one to this
effect: If in any tumultuous dissension a sedition should ensue,
and the people divide themselves into two parties, and from this
irritation of their minds both sides should take arms and fight;
then he who in this unfortunate period of civil discord should
join himself to neither party, but should individually withdraw
himself from the common calamity of the city, should be deprived
of his house, his family and fortunes, and be driven into exile
from his country. When I had read this law of Solon, who was
eminent for his wisdom, I was at first impressed with great
astonishment, wondering for what reason he should think those
men deserving of punishment who withdrew themselves from
sedition and a civil war. Then a person who had profoundly
and carefully examined the use and purport of this law, affirmed
that it was calculated not to increase but terminate sedition; and
indeed it really is so, for if all the more respectable, who were
at first unable to check sedition, and could not overawe the
divided and infatuated people, join themselves to one part or
other, it will happen that when they are divided on both sides,
and each party begins to be ruled and moderated by them, as
men of superior influence, harmony will by their means be sooner
restored and confirmed; for whilst they regulate and temper their
own parties respectively, they would rather see their opponents
conciliated than destroyed. Favorinus the philosopher was of
opinion that the same thing ought to be done in the disputes of
brothers and of friends: that they who are benevolently inclined
to both sides, but have little influence in restoring harmony,
from being considered as doubtful friends, should decidedly take
one part or other; by which act they will obtain more effectual
power in restoring harmony to both. At present, says he, the
friends of both think they do well by leaving and deserting both,
thus giving them up to malignant or sordid lawyers, who inflame
their resentments and disputes from animosity or from avarice.


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AULUS GELLIUS
6259
THE NATURE OF SIGHT
I HAVE remarked various opinions among philosophers concern-
ing the causes of sight and the nature of vision. The Stoics
affirm the causes of sight to be an emission of radii from the
eyes against those things which are capable of being seen, with
an expansion at the same time of the air. But Epicurus thinks
that there proceed from all bodies certain images of the bodies
themselves, and that these impress themselves upon the eyes, and
that thence arises the sense of sight. Plato is of opinion that a
species of fire and light issues from the eyes, and that this, being
united and continued either with the light of the sun or the light
of some other fire, by its own, added to the external force, en-
ables us to see whatever it meets and illuminates.
But on these things it is not worth while to trifle further; and
I recur to an opinion of the Neoptolemus of Ennius, whom I
have before mentioned: he thinks that we should taste of phi-
losophy, but not plunge in it over head and ears.
EARLIEST LIBRARIES
PISISTRATUS the tyrant is said to have been the first who sup-
plied books of the liberal sciences at Athens for public use.
Afterwards the Athenians themselves with great care and pains
increased their number; but all this multitude of books, Xerxes,
when he obtained possession of Athens and burned the whole of
the city except the citadel, seized and carried away to Persia.
But King Seleucus, who was called Nicanor, many years after-
wards, was careful that all of them should be again carried back
to Athens.
A prodigious number of books were in succeeding times col-
lected by the Ptolemies in Egypt, to the amount of near seven
hundred thousand volumes. But in the first Alexandrine war the
whole library, during the plunder of the city, was destroyed by
fire; not by any concerted design, but accidentally by the auxil-
iary soldiers.
REALISTIC ACTING
THERE was an actor in Greece of great celebrity, superior to
the rest in the grace and harmony of his voice and action. His
name, it is said, was Polus, and he acted in the tragedies of the


## p. 6260 (#230) ###########################################

6260
AULUS GELLIUS
This
more eminent poets, with great knowledge and accuracy.
Polus lost by death his only and beloved son. When he had
sufficiently indulged his natural grief, he returned to his employ-
ment. Being at this time to act the Electra' of Sophocles at
Athens, it was his part to carry an urn as containing the bones
of Orestes. The argument of the fable is so imagined that
Electra, who is presumed to carry the relics of her brother,
laments and commiserates his end, who is believed to have died a
violent death. Polus, therefore, clad in the mourning habit of
Electra, took from the tomb the bones and urn of his son, and
as if embracing Orestes, filled the place, not with the image and
imitation, but with the sighs and lamentations of unfeigned sor-
row. Therefore, when a fable seemed to be represented, real
grief was displayed.
THE ATHLETE'S END
MILO of Crotona, a celebrated wrestler, who as is recorded
was crowned in the fiftieth Olympiad, met with a lamentable and
extraordinary death. When, now an old man, he had desisted
from his athletic art and was journeying alone in the woody
parts of Italy, he saw an oak very near the roadside, gaping in
the middle of the trunk, with its branches extended: willing, I
suppose, to try what strength he had left, he put his fingers into
the fissure of the tree, and attempted to pluck aside and sepa-
rate the oak, and did actually tear and divide it in the middle;
but when the oak was thus split in two, and he relaxed his hold
as having accomplished his intention, upon a cessation of the
force it returned to its natural position, and left the man, when
it united, with his hands confined, to be torn by wild beasts.
Translation of Rev. W. Beloe.
"


## p. 6261 (#231) ###########################################

6261
G&E T
ge
ed st
ed, ra
R. R. S
GESTA ROMANORUM
W
HAT are the 'Gesta Romanorum? ? The most curious and in-
teresting of all collections of popular tales. Negatively, one
thing they are not: that is, they are not Deeds of the Romans,
the acts of the heirs of the Cæsars. All such allusions are the purest
fantasy. The great "citee of Rome," and some oddly dubbed em-
peror thereof, indeed the entire background, are in truth as unhistor-
ical and imaginary as the tale itself.
Such stories are very old. So far back did they spring that it
would be idle to conjecture their origin. In the centuries long before
Caxton, the centuries before manuscript-writing filled up the leisure
hours of the monks, the Gesta,' both in the Orient and in the Occi-
dent, were brought forth. Plain, direct, and unvarnished, they are the
form in which the men of ideas of those rude times approached and
entertained, by accounts of human joy and woe, their brother men of
action. Every race of historic importance, from the eastern Turanians
to the western Celts, has produced such legends. Sometimes they
delight the lover of folk-lore; sometimes they belong to the Dryasdust
antiquarian. But our Gesta,' with their directness and naïveté, with
their occasional beauty of diction and fine touches of sympathy and
imagination,—even with their Northern lack of grace, —are properly
a part of literature. In these Deeds' is found the plot or ground-
plan of such master works as 'King Lear' and the 'Merchant of
Venice,' and the first cast of material refined by Chaucer, Gower,
Lydgate, Schiller, and other writers.
Among the people in medieval times such tales evidently passed
from mouth to mouth. They were the common food of fancy and
delight to our forefathers, as they gathered round the fire in stormy
weather. Their recital enlivened the women's unnumbered hours of
spinning, weaving, and embroidery. As the short days of the year
came on, there must have been calls for The Knights of Baldak and
Lombardy,' 'The Three Caskets,' or 'The White and Black Daugh-
ters,' as nowadays we go to our book-shelves for the stories that the
race still loves, and ungraciously enjoy the silent telling.
Such folk-stories as those in the Gesta' are in the main made
of, must have passed from district to district and even from nation
to nation, by many channels,- chief among them the constant wan-
derings of monks and minstrels,- becoming the common heritage of
many peoples, and passing from secular to sacerdotal use. The


## p. 6262 (#232) ###########################################

6262
GESTA ROMANORUM
mediæval Church, with the acuteness that characterized it, seized on
the pretty tales, and adding to them the moralizing which a crude
system of ethics enjoined, carried its spoils to the pulpit. Even the
fables of pagan Æsop were thus employed.
In the twelfth century the ecclesiastical forces were appropriating
to their use whatever secular rights and possessions came within
their grasp.
A common ardor permitted and sustained this aggran-
dizement, and the devotion that founded and swelled the mendicant
orders of Francis and Dominic, and led the populace to carry with
prayers and psalm-singing the stones of which great cathedrals were
built, readily gave their hearth-tales to illustrate texts and inculcate
doctrines. A habit of interpreting moral and religious precepts by
allegory led to the far-fetched, sometimes droll, and always naïve
"moralities" which commonly follow each one of the 'Gesta. ' The
more popular the tale, the more easily it held the attention; and the
priests with telling directness brought home the moral to the simple-
minded. The innocent joys and sad offenses of humanity interpreted.
the Church's whole system of theology, and the stories, committed to
writing by the priests, were thus preserved.
The secular tales must have been used in the pulpit for some
time before their systematic collection was undertaken. The zeal for
compiling probably reached its height in the age of Pierre Bercheure,
who died in 1362. To Bercheure, prior of the Benedictine Convent
of St. Eloi at Paris, the collection of Gesta Romanorum' has been
ascribed. A German scholar, however, Herr Österley, who published
in 1872 the result of an investigation of one hundred and sixty-five
manuscripts, asserts that the 'Gesta' were originally compiled towards
the end of the thirteenth century in England, from which country
they were taken to the Continent, there undergoing various altera-
tions. "The popularity of the original 'Gesta,'" says Sir F, Madden,
"not only on the Continent but among the English clergy, appears
to have induced some person, apparently in the reign of Richard
the Second, to undertake a similar compilation in this country. " The
'Anglo-Latin Gesta' is the immediate original of the early English
translation from which the following stories are taken, with slight
verbal changes.
The word Gesta, in medieval Latin, means notable or historic act
or exploit. The Church, drawing all power, consequence, and grace
from Rome, naturally looked back to the Roman empire for historic
examples. In this fact we find the reason of the name. The tales
betray an entire ignorance of history. In one, for example, a statue
is raised to Julius Cæsar twenty-two years after the founding of
Rome; while in another, Socrates, Alexander, and the Emperor Clau-
dius are living together in Rome.


## p. 6263 (#233) ###########################################

GESTA ROMANORUM
6263
P
It is a pleasant picture which such legends bring before our eyes.
The old parish church of England, which with its yards is a common
meeting-place for the people's fairs and wakes, and even for their
beer-brewing; the simple rustics forming the congregation; the ton-
sured head of the priest rising above the pulpit,- a monk from the
neighboring abbey, who earns his brown bread and ale and venison
by endeavors to move the moral sentiments which lie at the root of
the Anglo-Saxon character and beneath the apparent stolidity of each
yokel. Many of the tales are unfit for reproduction in our more
mincing times. The faithlessness of wives-with no reference what-
ever to the faithlessness of husbands-is a favorite theme with these
ancient cenobites.
It is possible, Herr Österley thinks, that the conjecture of Francis
Douce may be true, and the 'Gesta' may after all have been compiled
in Germany. But the bulk of the evidence goes to prove an English
origin. The earliest editions were published at Utrecht and at Co-
logne.