But let him
describe
it himself.
Lucian
That is not the case; the
greater the drain upon it in the course of exercise, the greater
the supply; did you ever hear a story about the Hydra? cut off one
of its heads, and two immediately sprang up in its place. No, it is
the unexercised and fibreless, in whom no adequate store of
material has ever been laid up, that will peak and pine under toil.
There is a similar difference between a fire and a lamp; the same
breath that kindles the former and soon excites it to greater heat
will put out the latter, which is but ill provided to resist the
blast; it has a precarious tenure, you see.
_An_. Ah, I cannot get hold of all that, Solon; it is too
subtle for me--wants exact thought and keen intelligence. But I
wish you would tell me--at the Olympic, Isthmian, Pythian, and
other Games, attended, you tell me, by crowds to see your youth
contend, why do you have no martial events? Instead, you put them
in a conspicuous place and exhibit them kicking and cuffing one
another, and when they win give them apples or wild olive. Now your
reason for that would be worth hearing.
_So_. Well, we think it will increase their keenness for
exercise to see the champions at it honoured and proclaimed by name
among the assembled Greeks. It is the thought of having to strip
before such a crowd that makes them take pains with their
condition; they do not want to be a shameful spectacle, so each
does his best to deserve success. And the prizes, as I said before,
are not small things--to be applauded by the spectators, to be the
mark of all eyes and fingers as the best of one's contemporaries.
Accordingly, numbers of spectators, not too old for training,
depart with a passion thus engendered for toilsome excellence. Ah,
Anacharsis, if the love of fair fame were to be wiped out of our
lives, what good would remain? Who would care to do a glorious
deed? But as things are you may form your conclusions from what you
see. These who are so keen for victory when they have no weapons
and only a sprig of wild olive or an apple to contend for, how
would they behave in martial array, with country and wives and
children and altars at stake?
I wonder what your feelings would be if you saw our quail and cock
fights, and the excitement they raise. You would laugh, no doubt,
especially when you were told that they are enjoined by law, and
that all of military age must attend and watch how the birds spar
till they are utterly exhausted. And yet it is not a thing to laugh
at either; a spirit of contempt for danger is thus instilled into
men's souls; shall they yield to cocks in nobility and courage?
shall they let wounds or weariness or discomfort incapacitate them
before there is need? But as for testing our men in arms and
looking on while they gash one another, no, thank you! that would
be brutality and savagery, besides the bad policy of butchering our
bravest, who would serve us best against our enemies.
You say you are going to visit the rest of Greece also. Well, if
you go to Sparta, remember not to laugh at them either, nor think
their labour is all in vain, when they charge and strike one
another over a ball in the theatre; or perhaps they will go into a
place enclosed by water, divide into two troops, and handle one
another as severely as enemies (except that they too have no arms),
until the Lycurgites drive the Heraclids, or vice versa, out of the
enclosure and into the water; it is all over then; not another blow
breaks the peace. Still worse, you may see them being scourged at
the altar, streaming with blood, while their parents look on--the
mothers, far from being distressed by the sight, actually making
them hold out with threats, imploring them to endure pain to the
last extremity and not be unmanned by suffering. There are many
instances of their dying under the trial; while they had life and
their people's eyes were on them, they would not give up, nor
concede anything to bodily pain; and you will find their statues
there, set up _honoris causa_ by the Spartan state. Seeing
these things, never take them for madmen, nor say that, since it is
neither a tyrant's bidding nor a conqueror's ordinance, they
victimize themselves for no good reason. Lycurgus their lawgiver
would have many reasonable remarks to make to you on the subject,
and give you his grounds for thus afflicting them; he was not moved
by enmity or hatred; he was not wasting the state's young blood for
nothing; he only thought it proper that defenders of their country
should have endurance in the highest degree and be entirely
superior to fear. However, you need no Lycurgus to tell you; you
can surely see for yourself that, if one of these men were captured
in war, no tortures would wring a Spartan secret out of him; he
would take his scourging with a smile, and try whether the scourger
would not be tired sooner than the scourged.
_An_. Solon, did Lycurgus take his whippings at the fighting
age, or did he make these spirited regulations on the safe basis of
superannuation?
_So_. It was in his old age, after returning from Crete, that
he legislated. He had been attracted to Crete by hearing that their
laws were the best possible, devised by Minos, son of Zeus.
_An_. Well, and why did you not copy Lycurgus and whip your
young men? It is a fine institution quite worthy of yourselves.
_So_. Oh, we were content with our native exercises; we are
not much given to imitating other nations.
_An_. No, no; you realize what a thing it is to be stripped
and scourged with one's hands up, without benefit to oneself or
one's country. If I do happen to be at Sparta when this performance
is on, I shall expect a public stoning at their hands for laughing
at it all, when I see them being whipped like robbers or thieves or
such malefactors. Really, I think a state that submits to such
ridiculous treatment at its own hands wants a dose of hellebore.
_So_. Friend, do not plume yourself on winning an undefended
case where you have it all your own way in the absence of your
opponents. In Sparta you will find some one to plead properly for
their customs. But now, as I have described ours to you, not
apparently to your satisfaction, I may fairly ask you to take your
turn and tell me how you train your youth in Scythia; what
exercises do you bring them up in? how do you make good men of
them?
_An_. Quite a fair demand, Solon; I will give you the Scythian
customs; there is no grandeur about them; they are not much like
yours; for we would never take a single box on the ears, we are
such cowards; but such as they are, you shall have them. We must
put off our talk till to-morrow, though, if you do not mind; I want
to think quietly over what you have said, and collect materials for
what I am to say myself. On that understanding let us go home; for
it is getting late.
OF MOURNING
The behaviour of the average man in a time of bereavement, his own
language and the remarks offered him by way of consolation, are
things that will reward the attention of a curious observer. The
mourner takes it for granted that a terrible blow has fallen both
upon himself and upon the object of his lamentations: yet for all
he knows to the contrary (and here I appeal to Pluto and
Persephone) the departed one, so far from being entitled to
commiseration, may find himself in improved circumstances. The
feelings of the bereaved party are in fact guided solely by custom
and convention. The procedure in such cases--but no: let me first
state the popular beliefs on the subject of death itself; we shall
then understand the motives for the elaborate ceremonial with which
it is attended.
The vulgar (as philosophers call the generality of mankind),
implicitly taking as their text-book the fictions of Homer and
Hesiod and other poets, assume the existence of a deep subterranean
hole called Hades; spacious, murky, and sunless, but by some
mysterious means sufficiently lighted to render all its details
visible. Its king is a brother of Zeus, one Pluto; whose name--so
an able philologer assures me--contains a complimentary allusion to
his ghostly wealth. As to the nature of his government, and the
condition of his subjects, the authority allotted to him extends
over all the dead, who, from the moment that they come under his
control, are kept in unbreakable fetters; Shades are on no account
permitted to return to Earth; to this rule there have been only two
or three exceptions since the beginning of the world, and these
were made for very urgent reasons. His realm is encompassed by vast
rivers, whose very names inspire awe: Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon, and
the like. Most formidable of all, and first to arrest the progress
of the new-comer, is Acheron, that lake which none may pass save by
the ferryman's boat; it is too deep to be waded, too broad for the
swimmer, and even defies the flight of birds deceased. At the very
beginning of the descent is a gate of adamant: here Aeacus, a
nephew of the king, stands on guard. By his side is a three-headed
dog, a grim brute; to new arrivals, however, he is friendly enough,
reserving his bark, and the yawning horror of his jaws, for the
would-be runaway. On the inner shore of the lake is a meadow,
wherein grows asphodel; here, too, is the fountain that makes war
on memory, and is hence called Lethe. All these particulars the
ancients would doubtless obtain from the Thessalian queen Alcestis
and her fellow-countryman Protesilaus, from Theseus the son of
Aegeus, and from the hero of the Odyssey. These witnesses (whose
evidence is entitled to our most respectful acceptance) did not, as
I gather, drink of the waters of Lethe; because then they would not
have remembered. According to them, the supreme power is entirely
in the hands of Pluto and Persephone, who, however, are assisted in
the labours of government by a host of underlings: such are the
Furies, the Pains, the Fears; such too is Hermes, though he is not
always in attendance. Judicial powers are vested in two satraps or
viceroys, Minos and Rhadamanthus, both Cretans, and both sons of
Zeus. By them all good and just men who have followed the precepts
of virtue are sent off in large detachments to form colonies, as it
were, in the Elysian Plain, and there to lead the perfect life.
Evil-doers, on the contrary, are handed over to the Furies, who
conduct them to the place of the wicked, where they are punished in
due proportion to their iniquities. What a variety of torments is
there presented! The rack, the fire, the gnawing vulture; here
Ixion spins upon his wheel, there Sisyphus rolls his stone. I have
not forgotten Tantalus; but he stands elsewhere, stands parched on
the Lake's very brink, like to die of thirst, poor wretch! Then
there is the numerous class of neutral characters; these wander
about the meadow; formless phantoms, that evade the touch like
smoke. It seems that they depend for their nourishment upon the
libations and victims offered by us upon their tombs; accordingly,
a Shade who has no surviving friends or relations passes a hungry
time of it in the lower world.
So profoundly have the common people been impressed with these
doctrines that, when a man dies, the first act of his relations is
to put a penny into his mouth, that he may have wherewithal to pay
the ferryman: they do not stop to inquire what is the local
currency, whether Attic or Macedonian or Aeginetan; nor does it
occur to them how much better it would be for the departed one if
the fare were not forthcoming,--because then the ferryman would
decline to take him, and he would be sent back into the living
world. Lest the Stygian Lake should prove inadequate to the
requirements of ghostly toilets, the corpse is next washed,
anointed with the choicest unguents to arrest the progress of
decay, crowned with fresh flowers, and laid out in sumptuous
raiment; an obvious precaution, this last; it would not do for the
deceased to take a chill on the journey, nor to exhibit himself to
Cerberus with nothing on. Lamentation follows. The women wail; men
and women alike weep and beat their breasts and rend their hair and
lacerate their cheeks; clothes are also torn on the occasion, and
dust sprinkled on the head. The survivors are thus reduced to a
more pitiable condition than the deceased: while they in all
probability are rolling about and dashing their heads on the
ground, he, bravely attired and gloriously garlanded, reposes
gracefully upon his lofty bier, adorned as it were for some
pageant. The mother--nay, it is the father, as likely as not,--now
advances from among the relatives, falls upon the bier (to heighten
the dramatic effect, we will suppose its occupant to be young and
handsome), and utters wild and meaningless ejaculations; the corpse
cannot speak, otherwise it might have something to say in reply.
His son--the father exclaims, with a mournful emphasis on every
word,--his beloved son is no more; he is gone; torn away before his
hour was come, leaving him alone to mourn; he has never married,
never begotten children, never been on the field of battle, never
laid hand to the plough, never reached old age; never again will he
make merry, never again know the joys of love, never, alas! tipple
at the convivial board among his comrades. And so on, and so on. He
imagines his son to be still coveting these things, and coveting
them in vain. But this is nothing: time after time men have been
known to slaughter horses upon the tomb, and concubines and pages;
to burn clothes and other finery, or bury it, in the idea that the
deceased will find a profitable use for such things in the lower
world. Now the afflicted senior, in delivering the tragic
utterances I have suggested above, and others of the same kind, is
not, as I understand it, consulting the interests of his son (who
he knows will not hear him, though he shout louder than Stentor),
nor yet his own; he is perfectly aware of his sentiments, and has
no occasion to bellow them into his own ear. The natural conclusion
is, that this tomfoolery is for the benefit of the spectators; and
all the time he has not an idea where his son is, or what may be
his condition; he cannot even have reflected upon human life
generally, or he would know that the loss of it is no such great
matter. Let us imagine that the son has obtained leave from Aeacus
and Pluto to take a peep into the daylight, and put a stop to these
parental maunderings. 'Confound it, sir,' he might exclaim, 'what
is the noise about? You bore me. Enough of hair-plucking and face-
scratching. When you call me an ill-fated wretch, you abuse a
better man than yourself, and a more fortunate. Why are you so
sorry for me? Is it because I am not a bald, bent, wrinkled old
cripple like yourself? Is it because I have not lived to be a
battered wreck, nor seen a thousand moons wax and wane, only to
make a fool of myself at the last before a crowd? Can your sapience
point to any single convenience of life, of which we are deprived
in the lower world? I know what you will say: clothes and good
dinners, wine and women, without which you think I shall be
inconsolable. Are you now to learn that freedom from hunger and
thirst is better than meat and drink, and insensibility to cold
better than plenty of clothes? Come, I see you need enlightenment;
I will show you how lamentation ought to be done. Make a fresh
start, thus: Alas, my son! Hunger and thirst and cold are his no
longer! He is gone, gone beyond the reach of sickness; he fears not
fever any more, nor enemies nor tyrants. Never again, my son, shall
love disturb your peace, impair your health, make hourly inroads on
your purse; oh, heavy change! Never can you reach contemptible old
age, never be an eyesore to your juniors! --Confess, now, that my
lamentation has the advantage of yours, in veracity, as in
absurdity.
'Perhaps it is the pitchy darkness of the infernal regions that
runs in your head? is that the trouble? Are you afraid I shall be
suffocated in the confinement of the tomb? You should reflect that
my eyes will presently decay, or (if such is your good pleasure) be
consumed with fire; after which I shall have no occasion to notice
either light or darkness. However, let that pass. But all this
lamentation, now; this fluting and beating of breasts; these wholly
disproportionate wailings: how am I the better for it all? And what
do I want with a garlanded column over my grave? And what good do
you suppose you are going to do by pouring wine on it? do you
expect it to filter through all the way to Hades? As to the
victims, you must surely see for yourselves that all the solid
nutriment is whisked away heavenwards in the form of smoke, leaving
us Shades precisely as we were; the residue, being dust, is
useless; or is it your theory that Shades batten on ashes? Pluto's
realm is not so barren, nor asphodel so scarce with us, that we
must apply to you for provisions. --What with this winding-sheet and
these woollen bandages, my jaws have been effectually sealed up,
or, by Tisiphone, I should have burst out laughing long before this
at the stuff you talk and the things you do. '
And at the word Death sealed his lips for ever.
Thus far our corpse, leaning on one side, supported on an elbow.
Can we doubt that he is in the right of it? And yet these
simpletons, not content with their own noise, must call in
professional assistance: an artist in grief, with a fine repertoire
of cut-and-dried sorrows at his command, assumes the direction
of this inane choir, and supplies a theme for their woful
acclamations. So far, all men are fools alike: but at this point
national peculiarities make their appearance. The Greeks burn their
dead, the Persians bury them; the Indian glazes the body, the
Scythian eats it, the Egyptian embalms it. In Egypt, indeed, the
corpse, duly dried, is actually placed at table,--I have seen it
done; and it is quite a common thing for an Egyptian to relieve
himself from pecuniary embarrassment by a timely visit to the
pawnbroker, with his brother or father deceased. The childish
futility of pyramids and mounds and columns, with their short-lived
inscriptions, is obvious. But some people go further, and attempt
to plead the cause of the deceased with his infernal judges, or
testify to his merits, by means of funeral games and laudatory
epitaphs. The final absurdity is the funeral feast, at which the
assembled relatives strive to console the parents, and to prevail
upon them to take food; and, Heaven knows, they are willing enough
to be persuaded, being almost prostrated by a three days' fast.
'How long is this to go on? ' some one expostulates. 'Suffer the
spirit of your departed saint to rest in peace. Or if mourn you
will, then for that very reason you must eat, that your strength
may be proportioned to your grief. ' At this point, a couple of
lines of Homer go the round of the company:
Ev'n fair-haired Niobe forgat not food,
and
Not fasting mourn th' Achaeans for their dead.
The parents are persuaded, though they go to work at first in a
somewhat shamefaced manner; they do not want it to be thought that
after their bereavement they are still subject to the infirmities
of the flesh.
Such are some of the absurdities that may be observed in mourners;
for I have by no means exhausted the list. And all springs from the
vulgar error, that Death is the worst thing that can befall a man.
THE RHETORICIAN'S VADE MECUM
_See note at end of piece_.
You ask, young man, how you may become a rhetorician, and win
yourself the imposing and reverend style of Professor. You tell me
life is for you not worth living, if you cannot clothe yourself in
that power of the word which shall make you invincible and
irresistible, the cynosure of all men's admiration, the desired of
all Grecian ears. Your one wish is to be shown the way to that
goal. And small blame, youngster, to one who in the days of his
youth sets his gaze upon the things that are highest, and knowing
not how he shall attain, comes as you now come to me with the
privileged demand for counsel. Take then the best of it that I can
give, doubting nothing but you shall speedily be a man accomplished
to see the right and to give it expression, if you will henceforth
abide by what you now hear from me, practise it with assiduity, and
go confidently on your way till it brings you to the desired end.
The object of your pursuit is no poor one, worth but a moderate
endeavour; to grasp it you might be content to toil and watch and
endure to the utmost; mark how many they are who once were but
cyphers, but whom words have raised to fame and opulence, ay, and
to noble lineage.
Yet fear not, nor be appalled, when you contemplate the greatness
of your aim, by thought of the thousand toils first to be
accomplished. It is by no rough mountainous perspiring track that I
shall lead you; else were I no better than those other guides who
point you to the common way, long, steep, toilsome, nay, for the
most part desperate. What should commend my counsel to you is even
this: a road most pleasant and most brief, a carriage road of
downward slope, shall bring you in all delight and ease, at what
leisurely effortless pace you will, through flowery meadows and
plenteous shade, to that summit which you shall mount and hold
untired and there lie feasting, the while you survey from your
height those panting ones who took the other track; they are yet in
the first stage of their climb, forcing their slow way amid rough
or slippery crags, with many a headlong fall and many a wound from
those sharp rocks. But you will long have been up, and garlanded
and blest; you have slept, and waked to find that Rhetoric has
lavished upon you all her gifts at once.
Fine promises, these, are they not? But pray let it not stir your
doubts, that I offer to make most easy that which is most sweet. It
was but plucking a few leaves from Helicon, and the shepherd Hesiod
was a poet, possessed of the Muses and singing the birth of Gods
and Heroes; and may not a rhetorician ('tis no such proud title as
that of poet) be quickly made, if one but knows the speediest way?
Let me tell you of an idea that came to nothing for want of faith,
and brought no profit to the man it was offered to. Alexander had
fought Arbela, deposed Darius, and was lord of Persia; his orders
had to be conveyed to every part of his empire by dispatch-runners.
Now from Persia to Egypt was a long journey; to make the necessary
circuit round the mountains, cross Babylonia into Arabia, traverse
a great desert, and so finally reach Egypt, took at the best full
twenty days. And as Alexander had intelligence of disturbances in
Egypt, it was an inconvenience not to be able to send instructions
rapidly to his lieutenants there. A Sidonian trader came to him and
offered to shorten the distance: if a man cut straight across the
mountains, which could be done in three days, he would be in Egypt
without more ado. This was a fact; but Alexander took the man for
an impostor, and would have nothing to say to him. That is the
reception any surprisingly good offer may expect from most men.
Be not like them. A trial will soon show you that you may fly over
the mountains from Persia to Egypt, and in a day, in part of a day,
take rank as rhetorician. But first I will be your Cebes and give
you word-pictures of the two different ways leading to that
Rhetoric, with which I see you so in love. Imagine her seated on a
height, fair and comely; her right hand holds an Amalthea's horn
heaped high with all fruits, and at her other side you are to see
Wealth standing in all his golden glamour. In attendance too
are Repute and Might; and all about your lady's person flutter
and cling embodied Praises like tiny Loves. Or you may have
seen a painted Nilus; he reclines himself upon a crocodile or
hippopotamus, with which his stream abounds, and round him play the
tiny children they call in Egypt his _Cubits_; so play the
Praises about Rhetoric. Add yourself, the lover, who long to be
straightway at the top, that you may wed her, and all that is hers
be yours; for him that weds her she must endow with her worldly
goods.
When you have reached the mountain, you at first despair of scaling
it; you seem to have set yourself the task that Aornus [Footnote:
i. e. , birdless. ] presented to the Macedonians; how sheer it was on
every side! it was true, they thought, even a bird could hardly
soar that height; to take it would be work for a Dionysus or
Heracles. Then in a little while you discern two roads; or no, one
is no more than a track, narrow, thorny, rough, promising thirst
and sweat. But I need say no more of it; Hesiod has described it
long ago The other is broad, and fringed with flowers and well
watered and--not to keep you back with vain repetitions from the
prize even now within your grasp--such a road as I told you of but
now.
This much, however, I must add: that rough steep way shows not many
steps of travellers; a few there are, but of ancient date. It was
my own ill fortune to go up by it, expending needless toil; but I
could see from far off how level and direct was that other, though
I did not use it; in my young days I was perverse, and put trust in
the poet who told me that the Good is won by toil. He was in error;
I see that the many who toil not are more richly rewarded for their
fortunate choice of route and method. But the question is now of
you; I know that when you come to the parting of the ways you will
doubt--you doubt even now--which turn to take. What you must do,
then, to find the easiest ascent, and blessedness, and your bride,
and universal fame, I will tell you. Enough that _I_ have been
cheated into toil; for you let all grow unsown and unploughed as in
the age of gold.
A strong severe-looking man will at once come up to you; he has a
firm step, a deeply sunburnt body, a decided eye and wide-awake
air; it is the guide of the rough track. This absurd person makes
foolish suggestions that you should employ him, and points you out
the footmarks of Demosthenes, Plato, and others; they are larger
than what we make, but mostly half obliterated by time; he tells
you you will attain bliss and have Rhetoric to your lawful wife, if
you stick as closely to these as a rope-walker to his rope; but
diverge for a moment, make a false step, or incline your weight too
much either way, and farewell to your path and your bride. He will
exhort you to imitate these ancients, and offer you antiquated
models that lend themselves as little to imitation as old
sculpture, say the clean-cut, sinewy, hard, firmly outlined
productions of Hegesias, or the school of Critius and Nesiotes; and
he will tell you that toil and vigilance, abstinence and
perseverance, are indispensable, if you would accomplish your
journey. Most mortifying of all, the time he will stipulate for is
immense, years upon years; he does not so much as mention days or
months; whole Olympiads are his units; you feel tired at the mere
sound of them, and ready to relinquish the happiness you had set
your heart upon. And as if this was not enough, he wishes to be
paid handsomely for your trouble, and must have a good sum down
before he will even put you in the way.
So he will talk--a conceited primitive old-world personage; for
models he offers you old masters long dead and done with, and
expects you to exhume rusty speeches as if they were buried
treasures; you are to copy a certain cutler's son [Footnote:
Demosthenes. ] or one who called the clerk Atrometus father
[Footnote: Aeschines. ]; he forgets that we are at peace now, with
no invading Philip or hectoring Alexander to give a temporary value
to that sort of eloquence; and he has never heard of our new road
to Rhetoric, short, easy, and direct. Let him not prevail with you;
heed not him at all; in his charge, if you do not first break your
neck, you will wear yourself into a premature old age. If you are
really in love, and would enjoy Rhetoric before your prime is past,
and be made much of by her, dismiss this hairy specimen of ultra-
virility, and leave him to climb by himself or with what dupes he
can make, panting and perspiring to his heart's content.
Go you to the other road, where you will find much good company,
but in especial one man. Is he clever? is he engaging? Mark the
negligent ease of his gait, his neck's willowy curve, his
languishing glance; these words are honey, that breath perfume; was
ever head scratched with so graceful a forefinger? and those locks
--were there but more of them left--how hyacinthine their wavy
order! he is tender as Sardanapalus or Cinyras; 'tis Agathon's
self, loveliest of tragedy-makers. Take these traits, that seeing
you may know him; I would not have you miss so divine an
apparition, the darling of Aphrodite and the Graces. Yet how
needless! were he to come near while your eyes were closed, and
unbar those Hymettian lips to the voice that dwells within, you
could not want the thought that this was none of us who munch the
fruits of earth, but some spirit from afar that on honeydew hath
fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise. Him seek; trust yourself to
him, and you shall be in a trice rhetorician and man of note, and
in his own great phrase, King of Words, mounted without an effort
of your own upon the chariot of discourse. For here is the lore he
shall impart to his disciple.
But let him describe it himself. For one so eloquent it is absurd
that I should speak; my histrionic talent is not equal to so mighty
a task; I might trip, and break the heroic mask in my fall. He thus
addresses you, then, with a touch of the hand to those scanty
curls, and the usual charming delicate smile; you might take him--
so engaging is his utterance--for a Glycera, a Malthace, or her
comic and meretricious majesty, Thais herself. What has a refined
bewitching orator to do with the vulgar masculine?
Listen now to his modest remarks. _Dear sir, was it Apollo sent
you here? did he call me best of rhetoricians, as when Chaerephon
asked and was told who was wisest of his generation? If it has not
been so, if you have come directed only by the amazement and
applause, the wonder and despair, that attend my achievements, then
shall you soon learn whether there is divinity or no in him whom
you have sought. Look not for a greatness that may find its
parallel in this man or that; a Tityus, an Otus, an Ephialtes there
may have been; but here is a portent and a marvel greater far than
they. You are to hear a voice that puts to silence all others, as
the trumpet the flute, as the cicala the bee, as the choir the
tuning-fork.
But you wish to be a rhetorician yourself; well, you could have
applied in no better quarter; my dear young friend, you have only
to follow my instructions and example, and keep carefully in mind
the rules I lay down for your guidance. Indeed you may start this
moment without a tremor; never let it disturb you that you have not
been through the laborious preliminaries with which the ordinary
system besets the path of fools; they are quite unnecessary. Stay
not to find your slippers, as the song has it; your naked feet will
do as well; writing is a not uncommon accomplishment, but I do not
insist upon it; it is one thing, and rhetoric is another.
I will first give you a list of the equipment and supplies for your
journey that you must bring with you from home, with a view to
making your way rapidly. After that, I will show you as we go along
some practical illustrations, add a few verbal precepts, and before
set of sun you shall be as superior a rhetorician as myself, the
absolute microcosm of your profession. Bring then above all
ignorance, to which add confidence, audacity, and effrontery; as
for diffidence, equity, moderation, and shame, you will please
leave them at home; they are not merely needless, they are
encumbrances. The loudest voice you can come by, please, a ready
falsetto, and a gait modelled on my own. That exhausts the real
necessaries; very often there would be no occasion for anything
further. But I recommend bright colours or white for your clothes;
the Tarentine stuff that lets the body show through is best; for
shoes, wear either the Attic woman's shape with the open network,
or else the Sicyonians that show white lining. Always have a train
of attendants, and a book in your hand.
The rest you will take in with your eyes and ears as we go. I will
tell you the rules you must observe, if Rhetoric is to recognize
and admit you; otherwise she will turn from you and drive you away
as an uninitiated intruder upon her mysteries. You must first be
exceedingly careful about your appearance; your clothes must be
quite the thing. Next, you must scrape up some fifteen old Attic
words--say twenty for an outside estimate; and these you must
rehearse diligently till you have them at the tip of your tongue;
let us say _sundry, whereupon, say you so, in some wise, my
masters;_ that is the sort of thing; these are for general
garnish, you understand; and you need not concern yourself about
any little dissimilarity, repulsion, discord, between them and the
rest; so long as your upper garment is fair and bright, what matter
if there is coarse serge beneath it?
Next, fill your quiver with queer mysterious words used once or
twice by the ancients, ready to be discharged at a moment's notice
in conversation. This will attract the attention of the common
herd, who will take you for a wonder, so much better educated than
themselves. Put on your clothes? of course not;_ invest yourself.
_Will you sit in the porch, when there is a_ parvys _to
hand? No earnest-money for us; let it be an_ arles-penny. _And
no breakfast-time, pray, but_ undern. _You may also do a
little word-formation of your own on occasion, and enact that a
person good, at exposition shall be known as a_ clarifier, _a
sensible one as a_ cogitant, _or a pantomime as a_ manuactor.
_If you commit a blunder or provincialism, you have only to carry
it off boldly with an instant reference to the authority of some
poet or historian, who need not exist or ever have existed; your
phrase has his approval, and he was a wise man and a past master in
language. As for your reading, leave the ancients alone; never mind
a foolish Isocrates, a tasteless Demosthenes, a frigid Plato; study
the works of the last generation; you will find the declamations,
as they call them, a plenteous store on which to draw at need.
When the time comes for you to perform, and the audience have
proposed subjects and invented cases for discussion, you should get
rid of the difficult ones by calling them trivial, and complain
that there is nothing in this selection that can really test a
man's powers. When they have chosen, do not hesitate a moment, but
start; the tongue is an unruly member; do not attempt to rule it;
never care whether your firstly is logics firstly, or your secondly
and thirdly in the right order; just say what comes; you may greave
your head and helmet your legs, but whatever you do, move, keep
going, never pause. If your subject is assault or adultery in
Athens, cite the Indians and Medes. Always have your Marathon and
your Cynaegirus handy; they are indispensable. Hardly less so are a
fleet crossing Mount Athos, an army treading the Hellespont, a sun
eclipsed by Persian arrows, a flying Xerxes, an admired Leonidas,
an inscriptive Othryades. Salamis, Artemisium, and Plataea, should
also be in constant use. All this dressed as usual with our
seasoning-garnish aforesaid--that persuasive flavour of
_sundry_ and _methinks_; do not wait till these seem to
be called for; they are pretty words, quite apart from their
relevancy.
If a fancy for impassioned_ recitative _comes over you,
indulge it as long as you will, and air your falsetto. If your
matter is not of the right poetic sort, you may consider yourself
to have met the requirements if you run over the names of the jury
in a rhythmic manner. Appeal constantly to the pathetic instinct,
smite your thigh, mouth your words well, punctuate with loud sighs,
and let your very back be eloquent as you pace to and fro. If the
audience fails to applaud, take offence, and give your offence
words; if they get up and prepare to go out in disgust, tell them
to sit down again; discipline must be maintained.
It will win you credit for copiousness, if you start with the
Trojan War--you may if you like go right hack to the nuptials of
Deucalion and Pyrrha--and thence trace your subject down to to-day.
People of sense, remember, are rare, and they will probably hold
their tongues out of charity; or if they do comment, it will be put
down to jealousy. The rest are awed by your costume, your voice,
gait, motions, falsetto, shoes, and_ sundry_; when they see
how you perspire and pant, they cannot admit a moment's doubt of
your being a very fine rhetorical performer. With them, your mere
rapidity is a miracle quite sufficient to establish your character.
Never prepare notes, then, nor think out a subject beforehand; that
shows one up at once.
Your friends' feet will be loud on the floor, in payment for the
dinners you give them; if they observe you in difficulties, they
will come to the rescue, and give you a chance, in the relief
afforded by rounds of applause, of thinking how to go on. A devoted
_claque_ of your own, by the way, is among your requirements.
Its use while you are performing I have given; and as you walk home
afterwards, discussing the points you made, you should be
absolutely surrounded by them as a bodyguard. If you meet
acquaintances on the way, talk very big about yourself, put a good
value on your merits, and never mind about their feelings. Ask
them, Where is Demosthenes now? Or wonder _which_ of the ancients
comes nearest you.
But dear me, I had very nearly passed over the most important and
effectual of all aids to reputation: the pouring of ridicule upon
your rivals. If a man has a fine style, its beauties are borrowed;
if a sober one, it is bad altogether. When you go to a recitation,
arrive late, which makes you conspicuous; and when all are
listening intently, interject some inappropriate commendation that
will distract and annoy the audience; they will be so sickened with
your offensive words that they cannot listen. And then do not wave
your hand too much--warm approval is rather low; and as to jumping
up, never do it more than once or twice. A slight smile is your
best expression; make it clear that you do not think much of the
thing. Only let your ears be critical, and you are sure of finding
plenty to condemn. In fact, all the qualities needed are easily
come by--audacity, effrontery, ready lying, indifference to
perjury, impartial jealousy, hatred, abuse, and skilful slander--
that is all you want to win you speedy credit and renown. So much
for your visible public life.
And in private you need draw the line at nothing, gambling, drink,
fornication, nor adultery; the last you should boast of, whether
truly or not; make no secret of it, but exhibit your notes from
real or imaginary frail ones. One of your aims should be to pass
for a pretty fellow, in much favour with the ladies; the report
will be professionally useful to you, your influence with the sex
being accounted for by your rhetorical eminence.
Master these instructions, young man--they are surely simple enough
not to overtax your powers--, and I confidently promise that you
shall soon be a first-class rhetorician like myself; after which I
need not tell you what great and what rapid advancement Rhetoric
will put in your way. You have but to look at me. My father was an
obscure person barely above a slave; he had in fact been one south
of Xois and Thmuis; my mother a common sempstress. I was myself not
without pretensions to beauty in my youth, which earned me a bare
living from a miserly ill-conditioned admirer; but I discovered
this easy short-cut, made my way to the top--for I had, if I may be
bold to say it, all the qualifications I told you of, confidence,
ignorance, and effrontery--, and at once found myself in a position
to change my name of Pothinus to one that levels me with the
children of Zeus and Leda. I then established myself in an old
dame's house, where I earned my keep by professing a passion for
her seventy years and her half-dozen remaining teeth, dentist's
gold and all. However, poverty reconciled me to my task; even for
those cold coffin kisses,_ fames _was_ condimentum optimum.
_And it was by the merest ill luck that I missed inheriting her
wealth--that damned slave who peached about the poison I had
bought!
I was turned out neck and crop, but even so I did not starve. I
have my professional position and am well known in the courts--
especially for collusion and the corruption-agency which I keep for
credulous litigants. My cases generally go against me; but the
palms at my door [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to
chapter end. ] are fresh and flower-crowned--springes to catch
woodcocks, you know. Then, to be the object of universal
detestation, to be distinguished only less for the badness of one's
character than for that of one's speeches, to be pointed at by
every finger as the famous champion of all-round villany--this
seems to me no inconsiderable attainment. And now you have my
advice; take it with the blessing of the great Goddess Lubricity.
It is the same that I gave myself long ago; and very thankful I
have been to myself for it. _
Ah! our admirable friend seems to have done. If you decide to take
his advice, you may regard yourself as practically arrived at your
goal. Keep his rules, and your path is clear; you may dominate the
courts, triumph in the lecture-room, be smiled on by the fair; your
bride shall be not, like your lawgiver and teacher's, an old woman
off the comic stage, but lovely dame Rhetoric. Plato told of Zeus
sweeping on in his winged car; you shall use the figure as fitly of
yourself. And I? why, I lack spirit and courage; I will stand out
of your way. I will resign--nay, I have resigned--my high place
about our lady's person to you; for I cannot pay my court to her
like the new school. Do your walk over, then, hear your name
announced, take your plaudits; I ask you only to remember that you
owe the victory not to your speed, but to your discovery of the
easy down-hill route.
[Note at end of piece: It is apparent from the later half of this
piece that the satire is aimed at an individual. He is generally
identified with Julius Pollux. This Pollux (1) was contemporary
(floruit A. D. 183) with Lucian. (2) Explains by his name the
reference to Leda's children (Castor and Pollux) in Section 24. (3)
Published an Onomasticon, or classified vocabulary; cf. Sections
16, 17. (4) Published a collection of declamations, or school
rhetorical exercises on set themes; cf. Section 17. (5) Came from
Egypt; cf. Section 24; Xois and Thmuis were in that country. (6) Is
said to have been appointed professor of rhetoric at Athens by
Commodus purely on account of his mellifluous voice; cf. Section
19.
It is supposed that _Lexiphanes_ (in the dialogue of that
name, which has much in common with the present satire) is also
Julius Pollux. ]
[Relocated Footnote:
Now stretch your throat, unhappy man! now raise
Your clamours, that, when hoarse, a bunch of bays,
Stuck in your garret window, may declare,
That some victorious pleader nestles there.
_Juvenal_, vii. 118 (Gifford). ]
THE LIAR
_Tychiades. Philocles_
_Tyc_. Philocles, what _is_ it that makes most men so fond of a
lie? Can you explain it? Their delight in romancing themselves is
only equalled by the earnest attention with which they receive
other people's efforts in the same direction.
_Phi_. Why, in some cases there is no lack of motives for
lying,--motives of self-interest.
_Tyc_. Ah, but that is neither here nor there. I am not
speaking of men who lie with an object. There is some excuse for
that: indeed, it is sometimes to their credit, when they deceive
their country's enemies, for instance, or when mendacity is but the
medicine to heal their sickness. Odysseus, seeking to preserve his
life and bring his companions safe home, was a liar of that kind.
The men I mean are innocent of any ulterior motive: they prefer a
lie to truth, simply on its own merits; they like lying, it is
their favourite occupation; there is no necessity in the case. Now
what good can they get out of it?
_Phi_. Why, have you ever known any one with such a strong
natural turn for lying?
_Tyc_. Any number of them.
_Phi_. Then I can only say they must be fools, if they really
prefer evil to good.
_Tyc_. Oh, that is not it. I could point you out plenty of men
of first-rate ability, sensible enough in all other respects, who
have somehow picked up this vice of romancing. It makes me quite
angry: what satisfaction can there be to men of their good
qualities in deceiving themselves and their neighbours? There are
instances among the ancients with which you must be more familiar
than I. Look at Herodotus, or Ctesias of Cnidus; or, to go further
back, take the poets--Homer himself: here are men of world-wide
celebrity, perpetuating their mendacity in black and white; not
content with deceiving their hearers, they must send their lies
down to posterity, under the protection of the most admirable
verse. Many a time I have blushed for them, as I read of the
mutilation of Uranus, the fetters of Prometheus, the revolt of the
Giants, the torments of Hell; enamoured Zeus taking the shape of
bull or swan; women turning into birds and bears; Pegasuses,
Chimaeras, Gorgons, Cyclopes, and the rest of it; monstrous medley!
fit only to charm the imaginations of children for whom Mormo and
Lamia have still their terrors. However, poets, I suppose, will be
poets. But when it comes to national lies, when one finds whole
cities bouncing collectively like one man, how is one to keep one's
countenance? A Cretan will look you in the face, and tell you that
yonder is Zeus's tomb. In Athens, you are informed that
Erichthonius sprang out of the Earth, and that the first Athenians
grew up from the soil like so many cabbages; and this story assumes
quite a sober aspect when compared with that of the Sparti, for
whom the Thebans claim descent from a dragon's teeth. If you
presume to doubt these stories, if you choose to exert your common
sense, and leave Triptolemus's winged aerial car, and Pan's
Marathonian exploits, and Orithyia's mishap, to the stronger
digestions of a Coroebus and a Margites, you are a fool and a
blasphemer, for questioning such palpable truths. Such is the power
of lies!
_Phi_. I must say I think there is some excuse, Tychiades,
both for your national liars and for the poets. The latter are
quite right in throwing in a little mythology: it has a very
pleasing effect, and is just the thing to secure the attention of
their hearers. On the other hand, the Athenians and the Thebans and
the rest are only trying to add to the lustre of their respective
cities. Take away the legendary treasures of Greece, and you
condemn the whole race of ciceroni to starvation: sightseers do not
want the truth; they would not take it at a gift. However, I
surrender to your ridicule any one who has no such motive, and yet
rejoices in lies.
_Tyc_. Very well: now I have just been with the great Eucrates, who
treated me to a whole string of old wives' tales. I came away in
the middle of it; he was too much for me altogether; Furies could
not have driven me out more effectually than his marvel-working
tongue.
_Phi_. What, Eucrates, of all credible witnesses? That venerably
bearded sexagenarian, with his philosophic leanings? I could never
have believed that he would lend his countenance to other people's
lies, much less that _he_ was capable of such things himself
_Tyc_. My dear sir, you should have heard the stuff he told
me; the way in which he vouched for the truth of it all too,
solemnly staking the lives of his children on his veracity! I
stared at him in amazement, not knowing what to make of it: one
moment I thought he must be out of his mind; the next I concluded
he had been a humbug all along, an ape in a lion's skin. Oh, it was
monstrous.
_Phi_. Do tell me all about it; I am curious to see the
quackery that shelters beneath so long a beard.
_Tyc_. I often look in on Eucrates when I have time on my
hands, but to-day I had gone there to see Leontichus; he is a
friend of mine, you know, and I understood from his boy that he had
gone off early to inquire after Eucrates's health, I had not heard
that there was anything the matter with him, but this was an
additional reason for paying him a visit. When I got there,
Leontichus had just gone away, so Eucrates said; but he had a
number of other visitors. There was Cleodemus the Peripatetic and
Dinomachus the Stoic, and Ion. You know Ion? he is the man who
fancies himself so much on his knowledge of Plato; if you take his
word for it, he is the only man who has ever really got to the
bottom of that philosopher's meaning, or is qualified to act as his
interpreter. There is a company for you; Wisdom and Virtue
personified, the _elite_ of every school, most reverend gentlemen
all of them; it almost frightened one. Then there was Antigonus the
doctor, who I suppose attended in his professional capacity.
Eucrates seemed to be better already: he had come to an
understanding with the gout, which had now settled down in his feet
again. He motioned me to a seat on the couch beside him. His voice
sank to the proper invalid level when he saw me coming, but on my
way in I had overheard him bellowing away most lustily. I made him
the usual compliments--explained that this was the first I had
heard of his illness, and that I had come to him post-haste--and
sat down at his side, in very gingerly fashion, lest I should touch
his feet. There had been a good deal of talk already about gout,
and this was still going on; each man had his pet prescription to
offer. Cleodemus was giving his. 'In the left hand take up the
tooth of a field-mouse, which has been killed in the manner
described, and attach it to the skin of a freshly flayed lion; then
bind the skin about your legs, and the pain will instantly cease. '
'A lion's skin? ' says Dinomachus; 'I understood it was an uncovered
hind's. That sounds more likely: a hind has more pace, you see, and
is particularly strong in the feet. A lion is a brave beast, I
grant you; his fat, his right fore-paw, and his beard-bristles, are
all very efficacious, if you know the proper incantation to use
with each; but they would hardly be much use for gout. ' 'Ah, yes;
that is what I used to think for a long time: a hind was fast, so
her skin must be the one for the purpose. But I know better now: a
Libyan, who understands these things, tells me that lions are
faster than stags; they must be, he says, because how else could
they catch them? 'All agreed that the Libyan's argument was
convincing. When I asked what good incantations could do, and how
an internal complaint could be cured by external attachments, I
only got laughed at for my pains; evidently they set me down as a
simpleton, ignorant of the merest truisms, that no one in his
senses would think of disputing. However, I thought doctor
Antigonus seemed rather pleased at my question. I expect his
professional advice had been slighted: he wanted to lower
Eucrates's tone,--cut down his wine, and put him on a vegetable
diet. 'What, Tychiades,' says Cleodemus, with a faint grin,' you
don't believe these remedies are good for anything? ' 'I should have
to be pretty far gone,' I replied, 'before I could admit that
external things, which have no communication with the internal
causes of disease, are going to work by means of incantations and
stuff, and effect a cure merely by being hung on. You might take
the skin of the Nemean lion himself, with a dozen of field-mice
tacked on, and you would do no good. Why, I have seen a live lion
limping before now, hide and all complete. ' 'Ah, you have a great
deal to learn,' cried Dinomachus; 'you have never taken the trouble
to inquire into the operation of these valuable remedies. It would
not surprise me to hear you disputing the most palpable facts, such
as the curing of tumours and intermittent fevers, the charming of
reptiles, and so on; things that every old woman can effect in
these days. And this being so, why should not the same principles
be extended further? ' 'Nail drives out nail,' I replied; 'you argue
in a circle. How do I know that these cures are brought about by
the means to which you attribute them? You have first to show
inductively that it is in the course of nature for a fever or a
tumour to take fright and bolt at the sound of holy names and
foreign incantations; till then, your instances are no better than
old wives' tales. ' 'In other words, you do not believe in the
existence of the Gods, since you maintain that cures cannot be
wrought by the use of holy names? ' 'Nay, say not so, my dear
Dinomachus,' I answered; 'the Gods may exist, and these things may
yet be lies. I respect the Gods: I see the cures performed by them,
I see their beneficence at work in restoring the sick through the
medium of the medical faculty and their drugs. Asclepius, and his
sons after him, compounded soothing medicines and healed the sick,
--without the lion's-skin-and-field-mouse process. '
'Never mind Asclepius,' cried Ion. 'I will tell you of a strange
thing that happened when I was a boy of fourteen or so.
greater the drain upon it in the course of exercise, the greater
the supply; did you ever hear a story about the Hydra? cut off one
of its heads, and two immediately sprang up in its place. No, it is
the unexercised and fibreless, in whom no adequate store of
material has ever been laid up, that will peak and pine under toil.
There is a similar difference between a fire and a lamp; the same
breath that kindles the former and soon excites it to greater heat
will put out the latter, which is but ill provided to resist the
blast; it has a precarious tenure, you see.
_An_. Ah, I cannot get hold of all that, Solon; it is too
subtle for me--wants exact thought and keen intelligence. But I
wish you would tell me--at the Olympic, Isthmian, Pythian, and
other Games, attended, you tell me, by crowds to see your youth
contend, why do you have no martial events? Instead, you put them
in a conspicuous place and exhibit them kicking and cuffing one
another, and when they win give them apples or wild olive. Now your
reason for that would be worth hearing.
_So_. Well, we think it will increase their keenness for
exercise to see the champions at it honoured and proclaimed by name
among the assembled Greeks. It is the thought of having to strip
before such a crowd that makes them take pains with their
condition; they do not want to be a shameful spectacle, so each
does his best to deserve success. And the prizes, as I said before,
are not small things--to be applauded by the spectators, to be the
mark of all eyes and fingers as the best of one's contemporaries.
Accordingly, numbers of spectators, not too old for training,
depart with a passion thus engendered for toilsome excellence. Ah,
Anacharsis, if the love of fair fame were to be wiped out of our
lives, what good would remain? Who would care to do a glorious
deed? But as things are you may form your conclusions from what you
see. These who are so keen for victory when they have no weapons
and only a sprig of wild olive or an apple to contend for, how
would they behave in martial array, with country and wives and
children and altars at stake?
I wonder what your feelings would be if you saw our quail and cock
fights, and the excitement they raise. You would laugh, no doubt,
especially when you were told that they are enjoined by law, and
that all of military age must attend and watch how the birds spar
till they are utterly exhausted. And yet it is not a thing to laugh
at either; a spirit of contempt for danger is thus instilled into
men's souls; shall they yield to cocks in nobility and courage?
shall they let wounds or weariness or discomfort incapacitate them
before there is need? But as for testing our men in arms and
looking on while they gash one another, no, thank you! that would
be brutality and savagery, besides the bad policy of butchering our
bravest, who would serve us best against our enemies.
You say you are going to visit the rest of Greece also. Well, if
you go to Sparta, remember not to laugh at them either, nor think
their labour is all in vain, when they charge and strike one
another over a ball in the theatre; or perhaps they will go into a
place enclosed by water, divide into two troops, and handle one
another as severely as enemies (except that they too have no arms),
until the Lycurgites drive the Heraclids, or vice versa, out of the
enclosure and into the water; it is all over then; not another blow
breaks the peace. Still worse, you may see them being scourged at
the altar, streaming with blood, while their parents look on--the
mothers, far from being distressed by the sight, actually making
them hold out with threats, imploring them to endure pain to the
last extremity and not be unmanned by suffering. There are many
instances of their dying under the trial; while they had life and
their people's eyes were on them, they would not give up, nor
concede anything to bodily pain; and you will find their statues
there, set up _honoris causa_ by the Spartan state. Seeing
these things, never take them for madmen, nor say that, since it is
neither a tyrant's bidding nor a conqueror's ordinance, they
victimize themselves for no good reason. Lycurgus their lawgiver
would have many reasonable remarks to make to you on the subject,
and give you his grounds for thus afflicting them; he was not moved
by enmity or hatred; he was not wasting the state's young blood for
nothing; he only thought it proper that defenders of their country
should have endurance in the highest degree and be entirely
superior to fear. However, you need no Lycurgus to tell you; you
can surely see for yourself that, if one of these men were captured
in war, no tortures would wring a Spartan secret out of him; he
would take his scourging with a smile, and try whether the scourger
would not be tired sooner than the scourged.
_An_. Solon, did Lycurgus take his whippings at the fighting
age, or did he make these spirited regulations on the safe basis of
superannuation?
_So_. It was in his old age, after returning from Crete, that
he legislated. He had been attracted to Crete by hearing that their
laws were the best possible, devised by Minos, son of Zeus.
_An_. Well, and why did you not copy Lycurgus and whip your
young men? It is a fine institution quite worthy of yourselves.
_So_. Oh, we were content with our native exercises; we are
not much given to imitating other nations.
_An_. No, no; you realize what a thing it is to be stripped
and scourged with one's hands up, without benefit to oneself or
one's country. If I do happen to be at Sparta when this performance
is on, I shall expect a public stoning at their hands for laughing
at it all, when I see them being whipped like robbers or thieves or
such malefactors. Really, I think a state that submits to such
ridiculous treatment at its own hands wants a dose of hellebore.
_So_. Friend, do not plume yourself on winning an undefended
case where you have it all your own way in the absence of your
opponents. In Sparta you will find some one to plead properly for
their customs. But now, as I have described ours to you, not
apparently to your satisfaction, I may fairly ask you to take your
turn and tell me how you train your youth in Scythia; what
exercises do you bring them up in? how do you make good men of
them?
_An_. Quite a fair demand, Solon; I will give you the Scythian
customs; there is no grandeur about them; they are not much like
yours; for we would never take a single box on the ears, we are
such cowards; but such as they are, you shall have them. We must
put off our talk till to-morrow, though, if you do not mind; I want
to think quietly over what you have said, and collect materials for
what I am to say myself. On that understanding let us go home; for
it is getting late.
OF MOURNING
The behaviour of the average man in a time of bereavement, his own
language and the remarks offered him by way of consolation, are
things that will reward the attention of a curious observer. The
mourner takes it for granted that a terrible blow has fallen both
upon himself and upon the object of his lamentations: yet for all
he knows to the contrary (and here I appeal to Pluto and
Persephone) the departed one, so far from being entitled to
commiseration, may find himself in improved circumstances. The
feelings of the bereaved party are in fact guided solely by custom
and convention. The procedure in such cases--but no: let me first
state the popular beliefs on the subject of death itself; we shall
then understand the motives for the elaborate ceremonial with which
it is attended.
The vulgar (as philosophers call the generality of mankind),
implicitly taking as their text-book the fictions of Homer and
Hesiod and other poets, assume the existence of a deep subterranean
hole called Hades; spacious, murky, and sunless, but by some
mysterious means sufficiently lighted to render all its details
visible. Its king is a brother of Zeus, one Pluto; whose name--so
an able philologer assures me--contains a complimentary allusion to
his ghostly wealth. As to the nature of his government, and the
condition of his subjects, the authority allotted to him extends
over all the dead, who, from the moment that they come under his
control, are kept in unbreakable fetters; Shades are on no account
permitted to return to Earth; to this rule there have been only two
or three exceptions since the beginning of the world, and these
were made for very urgent reasons. His realm is encompassed by vast
rivers, whose very names inspire awe: Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon, and
the like. Most formidable of all, and first to arrest the progress
of the new-comer, is Acheron, that lake which none may pass save by
the ferryman's boat; it is too deep to be waded, too broad for the
swimmer, and even defies the flight of birds deceased. At the very
beginning of the descent is a gate of adamant: here Aeacus, a
nephew of the king, stands on guard. By his side is a three-headed
dog, a grim brute; to new arrivals, however, he is friendly enough,
reserving his bark, and the yawning horror of his jaws, for the
would-be runaway. On the inner shore of the lake is a meadow,
wherein grows asphodel; here, too, is the fountain that makes war
on memory, and is hence called Lethe. All these particulars the
ancients would doubtless obtain from the Thessalian queen Alcestis
and her fellow-countryman Protesilaus, from Theseus the son of
Aegeus, and from the hero of the Odyssey. These witnesses (whose
evidence is entitled to our most respectful acceptance) did not, as
I gather, drink of the waters of Lethe; because then they would not
have remembered. According to them, the supreme power is entirely
in the hands of Pluto and Persephone, who, however, are assisted in
the labours of government by a host of underlings: such are the
Furies, the Pains, the Fears; such too is Hermes, though he is not
always in attendance. Judicial powers are vested in two satraps or
viceroys, Minos and Rhadamanthus, both Cretans, and both sons of
Zeus. By them all good and just men who have followed the precepts
of virtue are sent off in large detachments to form colonies, as it
were, in the Elysian Plain, and there to lead the perfect life.
Evil-doers, on the contrary, are handed over to the Furies, who
conduct them to the place of the wicked, where they are punished in
due proportion to their iniquities. What a variety of torments is
there presented! The rack, the fire, the gnawing vulture; here
Ixion spins upon his wheel, there Sisyphus rolls his stone. I have
not forgotten Tantalus; but he stands elsewhere, stands parched on
the Lake's very brink, like to die of thirst, poor wretch! Then
there is the numerous class of neutral characters; these wander
about the meadow; formless phantoms, that evade the touch like
smoke. It seems that they depend for their nourishment upon the
libations and victims offered by us upon their tombs; accordingly,
a Shade who has no surviving friends or relations passes a hungry
time of it in the lower world.
So profoundly have the common people been impressed with these
doctrines that, when a man dies, the first act of his relations is
to put a penny into his mouth, that he may have wherewithal to pay
the ferryman: they do not stop to inquire what is the local
currency, whether Attic or Macedonian or Aeginetan; nor does it
occur to them how much better it would be for the departed one if
the fare were not forthcoming,--because then the ferryman would
decline to take him, and he would be sent back into the living
world. Lest the Stygian Lake should prove inadequate to the
requirements of ghostly toilets, the corpse is next washed,
anointed with the choicest unguents to arrest the progress of
decay, crowned with fresh flowers, and laid out in sumptuous
raiment; an obvious precaution, this last; it would not do for the
deceased to take a chill on the journey, nor to exhibit himself to
Cerberus with nothing on. Lamentation follows. The women wail; men
and women alike weep and beat their breasts and rend their hair and
lacerate their cheeks; clothes are also torn on the occasion, and
dust sprinkled on the head. The survivors are thus reduced to a
more pitiable condition than the deceased: while they in all
probability are rolling about and dashing their heads on the
ground, he, bravely attired and gloriously garlanded, reposes
gracefully upon his lofty bier, adorned as it were for some
pageant. The mother--nay, it is the father, as likely as not,--now
advances from among the relatives, falls upon the bier (to heighten
the dramatic effect, we will suppose its occupant to be young and
handsome), and utters wild and meaningless ejaculations; the corpse
cannot speak, otherwise it might have something to say in reply.
His son--the father exclaims, with a mournful emphasis on every
word,--his beloved son is no more; he is gone; torn away before his
hour was come, leaving him alone to mourn; he has never married,
never begotten children, never been on the field of battle, never
laid hand to the plough, never reached old age; never again will he
make merry, never again know the joys of love, never, alas! tipple
at the convivial board among his comrades. And so on, and so on. He
imagines his son to be still coveting these things, and coveting
them in vain. But this is nothing: time after time men have been
known to slaughter horses upon the tomb, and concubines and pages;
to burn clothes and other finery, or bury it, in the idea that the
deceased will find a profitable use for such things in the lower
world. Now the afflicted senior, in delivering the tragic
utterances I have suggested above, and others of the same kind, is
not, as I understand it, consulting the interests of his son (who
he knows will not hear him, though he shout louder than Stentor),
nor yet his own; he is perfectly aware of his sentiments, and has
no occasion to bellow them into his own ear. The natural conclusion
is, that this tomfoolery is for the benefit of the spectators; and
all the time he has not an idea where his son is, or what may be
his condition; he cannot even have reflected upon human life
generally, or he would know that the loss of it is no such great
matter. Let us imagine that the son has obtained leave from Aeacus
and Pluto to take a peep into the daylight, and put a stop to these
parental maunderings. 'Confound it, sir,' he might exclaim, 'what
is the noise about? You bore me. Enough of hair-plucking and face-
scratching. When you call me an ill-fated wretch, you abuse a
better man than yourself, and a more fortunate. Why are you so
sorry for me? Is it because I am not a bald, bent, wrinkled old
cripple like yourself? Is it because I have not lived to be a
battered wreck, nor seen a thousand moons wax and wane, only to
make a fool of myself at the last before a crowd? Can your sapience
point to any single convenience of life, of which we are deprived
in the lower world? I know what you will say: clothes and good
dinners, wine and women, without which you think I shall be
inconsolable. Are you now to learn that freedom from hunger and
thirst is better than meat and drink, and insensibility to cold
better than plenty of clothes? Come, I see you need enlightenment;
I will show you how lamentation ought to be done. Make a fresh
start, thus: Alas, my son! Hunger and thirst and cold are his no
longer! He is gone, gone beyond the reach of sickness; he fears not
fever any more, nor enemies nor tyrants. Never again, my son, shall
love disturb your peace, impair your health, make hourly inroads on
your purse; oh, heavy change! Never can you reach contemptible old
age, never be an eyesore to your juniors! --Confess, now, that my
lamentation has the advantage of yours, in veracity, as in
absurdity.
'Perhaps it is the pitchy darkness of the infernal regions that
runs in your head? is that the trouble? Are you afraid I shall be
suffocated in the confinement of the tomb? You should reflect that
my eyes will presently decay, or (if such is your good pleasure) be
consumed with fire; after which I shall have no occasion to notice
either light or darkness. However, let that pass. But all this
lamentation, now; this fluting and beating of breasts; these wholly
disproportionate wailings: how am I the better for it all? And what
do I want with a garlanded column over my grave? And what good do
you suppose you are going to do by pouring wine on it? do you
expect it to filter through all the way to Hades? As to the
victims, you must surely see for yourselves that all the solid
nutriment is whisked away heavenwards in the form of smoke, leaving
us Shades precisely as we were; the residue, being dust, is
useless; or is it your theory that Shades batten on ashes? Pluto's
realm is not so barren, nor asphodel so scarce with us, that we
must apply to you for provisions. --What with this winding-sheet and
these woollen bandages, my jaws have been effectually sealed up,
or, by Tisiphone, I should have burst out laughing long before this
at the stuff you talk and the things you do. '
And at the word Death sealed his lips for ever.
Thus far our corpse, leaning on one side, supported on an elbow.
Can we doubt that he is in the right of it? And yet these
simpletons, not content with their own noise, must call in
professional assistance: an artist in grief, with a fine repertoire
of cut-and-dried sorrows at his command, assumes the direction
of this inane choir, and supplies a theme for their woful
acclamations. So far, all men are fools alike: but at this point
national peculiarities make their appearance. The Greeks burn their
dead, the Persians bury them; the Indian glazes the body, the
Scythian eats it, the Egyptian embalms it. In Egypt, indeed, the
corpse, duly dried, is actually placed at table,--I have seen it
done; and it is quite a common thing for an Egyptian to relieve
himself from pecuniary embarrassment by a timely visit to the
pawnbroker, with his brother or father deceased. The childish
futility of pyramids and mounds and columns, with their short-lived
inscriptions, is obvious. But some people go further, and attempt
to plead the cause of the deceased with his infernal judges, or
testify to his merits, by means of funeral games and laudatory
epitaphs. The final absurdity is the funeral feast, at which the
assembled relatives strive to console the parents, and to prevail
upon them to take food; and, Heaven knows, they are willing enough
to be persuaded, being almost prostrated by a three days' fast.
'How long is this to go on? ' some one expostulates. 'Suffer the
spirit of your departed saint to rest in peace. Or if mourn you
will, then for that very reason you must eat, that your strength
may be proportioned to your grief. ' At this point, a couple of
lines of Homer go the round of the company:
Ev'n fair-haired Niobe forgat not food,
and
Not fasting mourn th' Achaeans for their dead.
The parents are persuaded, though they go to work at first in a
somewhat shamefaced manner; they do not want it to be thought that
after their bereavement they are still subject to the infirmities
of the flesh.
Such are some of the absurdities that may be observed in mourners;
for I have by no means exhausted the list. And all springs from the
vulgar error, that Death is the worst thing that can befall a man.
THE RHETORICIAN'S VADE MECUM
_See note at end of piece_.
You ask, young man, how you may become a rhetorician, and win
yourself the imposing and reverend style of Professor. You tell me
life is for you not worth living, if you cannot clothe yourself in
that power of the word which shall make you invincible and
irresistible, the cynosure of all men's admiration, the desired of
all Grecian ears. Your one wish is to be shown the way to that
goal. And small blame, youngster, to one who in the days of his
youth sets his gaze upon the things that are highest, and knowing
not how he shall attain, comes as you now come to me with the
privileged demand for counsel. Take then the best of it that I can
give, doubting nothing but you shall speedily be a man accomplished
to see the right and to give it expression, if you will henceforth
abide by what you now hear from me, practise it with assiduity, and
go confidently on your way till it brings you to the desired end.
The object of your pursuit is no poor one, worth but a moderate
endeavour; to grasp it you might be content to toil and watch and
endure to the utmost; mark how many they are who once were but
cyphers, but whom words have raised to fame and opulence, ay, and
to noble lineage.
Yet fear not, nor be appalled, when you contemplate the greatness
of your aim, by thought of the thousand toils first to be
accomplished. It is by no rough mountainous perspiring track that I
shall lead you; else were I no better than those other guides who
point you to the common way, long, steep, toilsome, nay, for the
most part desperate. What should commend my counsel to you is even
this: a road most pleasant and most brief, a carriage road of
downward slope, shall bring you in all delight and ease, at what
leisurely effortless pace you will, through flowery meadows and
plenteous shade, to that summit which you shall mount and hold
untired and there lie feasting, the while you survey from your
height those panting ones who took the other track; they are yet in
the first stage of their climb, forcing their slow way amid rough
or slippery crags, with many a headlong fall and many a wound from
those sharp rocks. But you will long have been up, and garlanded
and blest; you have slept, and waked to find that Rhetoric has
lavished upon you all her gifts at once.
Fine promises, these, are they not? But pray let it not stir your
doubts, that I offer to make most easy that which is most sweet. It
was but plucking a few leaves from Helicon, and the shepherd Hesiod
was a poet, possessed of the Muses and singing the birth of Gods
and Heroes; and may not a rhetorician ('tis no such proud title as
that of poet) be quickly made, if one but knows the speediest way?
Let me tell you of an idea that came to nothing for want of faith,
and brought no profit to the man it was offered to. Alexander had
fought Arbela, deposed Darius, and was lord of Persia; his orders
had to be conveyed to every part of his empire by dispatch-runners.
Now from Persia to Egypt was a long journey; to make the necessary
circuit round the mountains, cross Babylonia into Arabia, traverse
a great desert, and so finally reach Egypt, took at the best full
twenty days. And as Alexander had intelligence of disturbances in
Egypt, it was an inconvenience not to be able to send instructions
rapidly to his lieutenants there. A Sidonian trader came to him and
offered to shorten the distance: if a man cut straight across the
mountains, which could be done in three days, he would be in Egypt
without more ado. This was a fact; but Alexander took the man for
an impostor, and would have nothing to say to him. That is the
reception any surprisingly good offer may expect from most men.
Be not like them. A trial will soon show you that you may fly over
the mountains from Persia to Egypt, and in a day, in part of a day,
take rank as rhetorician. But first I will be your Cebes and give
you word-pictures of the two different ways leading to that
Rhetoric, with which I see you so in love. Imagine her seated on a
height, fair and comely; her right hand holds an Amalthea's horn
heaped high with all fruits, and at her other side you are to see
Wealth standing in all his golden glamour. In attendance too
are Repute and Might; and all about your lady's person flutter
and cling embodied Praises like tiny Loves. Or you may have
seen a painted Nilus; he reclines himself upon a crocodile or
hippopotamus, with which his stream abounds, and round him play the
tiny children they call in Egypt his _Cubits_; so play the
Praises about Rhetoric. Add yourself, the lover, who long to be
straightway at the top, that you may wed her, and all that is hers
be yours; for him that weds her she must endow with her worldly
goods.
When you have reached the mountain, you at first despair of scaling
it; you seem to have set yourself the task that Aornus [Footnote:
i. e. , birdless. ] presented to the Macedonians; how sheer it was on
every side! it was true, they thought, even a bird could hardly
soar that height; to take it would be work for a Dionysus or
Heracles. Then in a little while you discern two roads; or no, one
is no more than a track, narrow, thorny, rough, promising thirst
and sweat. But I need say no more of it; Hesiod has described it
long ago The other is broad, and fringed with flowers and well
watered and--not to keep you back with vain repetitions from the
prize even now within your grasp--such a road as I told you of but
now.
This much, however, I must add: that rough steep way shows not many
steps of travellers; a few there are, but of ancient date. It was
my own ill fortune to go up by it, expending needless toil; but I
could see from far off how level and direct was that other, though
I did not use it; in my young days I was perverse, and put trust in
the poet who told me that the Good is won by toil. He was in error;
I see that the many who toil not are more richly rewarded for their
fortunate choice of route and method. But the question is now of
you; I know that when you come to the parting of the ways you will
doubt--you doubt even now--which turn to take. What you must do,
then, to find the easiest ascent, and blessedness, and your bride,
and universal fame, I will tell you. Enough that _I_ have been
cheated into toil; for you let all grow unsown and unploughed as in
the age of gold.
A strong severe-looking man will at once come up to you; he has a
firm step, a deeply sunburnt body, a decided eye and wide-awake
air; it is the guide of the rough track. This absurd person makes
foolish suggestions that you should employ him, and points you out
the footmarks of Demosthenes, Plato, and others; they are larger
than what we make, but mostly half obliterated by time; he tells
you you will attain bliss and have Rhetoric to your lawful wife, if
you stick as closely to these as a rope-walker to his rope; but
diverge for a moment, make a false step, or incline your weight too
much either way, and farewell to your path and your bride. He will
exhort you to imitate these ancients, and offer you antiquated
models that lend themselves as little to imitation as old
sculpture, say the clean-cut, sinewy, hard, firmly outlined
productions of Hegesias, or the school of Critius and Nesiotes; and
he will tell you that toil and vigilance, abstinence and
perseverance, are indispensable, if you would accomplish your
journey. Most mortifying of all, the time he will stipulate for is
immense, years upon years; he does not so much as mention days or
months; whole Olympiads are his units; you feel tired at the mere
sound of them, and ready to relinquish the happiness you had set
your heart upon. And as if this was not enough, he wishes to be
paid handsomely for your trouble, and must have a good sum down
before he will even put you in the way.
So he will talk--a conceited primitive old-world personage; for
models he offers you old masters long dead and done with, and
expects you to exhume rusty speeches as if they were buried
treasures; you are to copy a certain cutler's son [Footnote:
Demosthenes. ] or one who called the clerk Atrometus father
[Footnote: Aeschines. ]; he forgets that we are at peace now, with
no invading Philip or hectoring Alexander to give a temporary value
to that sort of eloquence; and he has never heard of our new road
to Rhetoric, short, easy, and direct. Let him not prevail with you;
heed not him at all; in his charge, if you do not first break your
neck, you will wear yourself into a premature old age. If you are
really in love, and would enjoy Rhetoric before your prime is past,
and be made much of by her, dismiss this hairy specimen of ultra-
virility, and leave him to climb by himself or with what dupes he
can make, panting and perspiring to his heart's content.
Go you to the other road, where you will find much good company,
but in especial one man. Is he clever? is he engaging? Mark the
negligent ease of his gait, his neck's willowy curve, his
languishing glance; these words are honey, that breath perfume; was
ever head scratched with so graceful a forefinger? and those locks
--were there but more of them left--how hyacinthine their wavy
order! he is tender as Sardanapalus or Cinyras; 'tis Agathon's
self, loveliest of tragedy-makers. Take these traits, that seeing
you may know him; I would not have you miss so divine an
apparition, the darling of Aphrodite and the Graces. Yet how
needless! were he to come near while your eyes were closed, and
unbar those Hymettian lips to the voice that dwells within, you
could not want the thought that this was none of us who munch the
fruits of earth, but some spirit from afar that on honeydew hath
fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise. Him seek; trust yourself to
him, and you shall be in a trice rhetorician and man of note, and
in his own great phrase, King of Words, mounted without an effort
of your own upon the chariot of discourse. For here is the lore he
shall impart to his disciple.
But let him describe it himself. For one so eloquent it is absurd
that I should speak; my histrionic talent is not equal to so mighty
a task; I might trip, and break the heroic mask in my fall. He thus
addresses you, then, with a touch of the hand to those scanty
curls, and the usual charming delicate smile; you might take him--
so engaging is his utterance--for a Glycera, a Malthace, or her
comic and meretricious majesty, Thais herself. What has a refined
bewitching orator to do with the vulgar masculine?
Listen now to his modest remarks. _Dear sir, was it Apollo sent
you here? did he call me best of rhetoricians, as when Chaerephon
asked and was told who was wisest of his generation? If it has not
been so, if you have come directed only by the amazement and
applause, the wonder and despair, that attend my achievements, then
shall you soon learn whether there is divinity or no in him whom
you have sought. Look not for a greatness that may find its
parallel in this man or that; a Tityus, an Otus, an Ephialtes there
may have been; but here is a portent and a marvel greater far than
they. You are to hear a voice that puts to silence all others, as
the trumpet the flute, as the cicala the bee, as the choir the
tuning-fork.
But you wish to be a rhetorician yourself; well, you could have
applied in no better quarter; my dear young friend, you have only
to follow my instructions and example, and keep carefully in mind
the rules I lay down for your guidance. Indeed you may start this
moment without a tremor; never let it disturb you that you have not
been through the laborious preliminaries with which the ordinary
system besets the path of fools; they are quite unnecessary. Stay
not to find your slippers, as the song has it; your naked feet will
do as well; writing is a not uncommon accomplishment, but I do not
insist upon it; it is one thing, and rhetoric is another.
I will first give you a list of the equipment and supplies for your
journey that you must bring with you from home, with a view to
making your way rapidly. After that, I will show you as we go along
some practical illustrations, add a few verbal precepts, and before
set of sun you shall be as superior a rhetorician as myself, the
absolute microcosm of your profession. Bring then above all
ignorance, to which add confidence, audacity, and effrontery; as
for diffidence, equity, moderation, and shame, you will please
leave them at home; they are not merely needless, they are
encumbrances. The loudest voice you can come by, please, a ready
falsetto, and a gait modelled on my own. That exhausts the real
necessaries; very often there would be no occasion for anything
further. But I recommend bright colours or white for your clothes;
the Tarentine stuff that lets the body show through is best; for
shoes, wear either the Attic woman's shape with the open network,
or else the Sicyonians that show white lining. Always have a train
of attendants, and a book in your hand.
The rest you will take in with your eyes and ears as we go. I will
tell you the rules you must observe, if Rhetoric is to recognize
and admit you; otherwise she will turn from you and drive you away
as an uninitiated intruder upon her mysteries. You must first be
exceedingly careful about your appearance; your clothes must be
quite the thing. Next, you must scrape up some fifteen old Attic
words--say twenty for an outside estimate; and these you must
rehearse diligently till you have them at the tip of your tongue;
let us say _sundry, whereupon, say you so, in some wise, my
masters;_ that is the sort of thing; these are for general
garnish, you understand; and you need not concern yourself about
any little dissimilarity, repulsion, discord, between them and the
rest; so long as your upper garment is fair and bright, what matter
if there is coarse serge beneath it?
Next, fill your quiver with queer mysterious words used once or
twice by the ancients, ready to be discharged at a moment's notice
in conversation. This will attract the attention of the common
herd, who will take you for a wonder, so much better educated than
themselves. Put on your clothes? of course not;_ invest yourself.
_Will you sit in the porch, when there is a_ parvys _to
hand? No earnest-money for us; let it be an_ arles-penny. _And
no breakfast-time, pray, but_ undern. _You may also do a
little word-formation of your own on occasion, and enact that a
person good, at exposition shall be known as a_ clarifier, _a
sensible one as a_ cogitant, _or a pantomime as a_ manuactor.
_If you commit a blunder or provincialism, you have only to carry
it off boldly with an instant reference to the authority of some
poet or historian, who need not exist or ever have existed; your
phrase has his approval, and he was a wise man and a past master in
language. As for your reading, leave the ancients alone; never mind
a foolish Isocrates, a tasteless Demosthenes, a frigid Plato; study
the works of the last generation; you will find the declamations,
as they call them, a plenteous store on which to draw at need.
When the time comes for you to perform, and the audience have
proposed subjects and invented cases for discussion, you should get
rid of the difficult ones by calling them trivial, and complain
that there is nothing in this selection that can really test a
man's powers. When they have chosen, do not hesitate a moment, but
start; the tongue is an unruly member; do not attempt to rule it;
never care whether your firstly is logics firstly, or your secondly
and thirdly in the right order; just say what comes; you may greave
your head and helmet your legs, but whatever you do, move, keep
going, never pause. If your subject is assault or adultery in
Athens, cite the Indians and Medes. Always have your Marathon and
your Cynaegirus handy; they are indispensable. Hardly less so are a
fleet crossing Mount Athos, an army treading the Hellespont, a sun
eclipsed by Persian arrows, a flying Xerxes, an admired Leonidas,
an inscriptive Othryades. Salamis, Artemisium, and Plataea, should
also be in constant use. All this dressed as usual with our
seasoning-garnish aforesaid--that persuasive flavour of
_sundry_ and _methinks_; do not wait till these seem to
be called for; they are pretty words, quite apart from their
relevancy.
If a fancy for impassioned_ recitative _comes over you,
indulge it as long as you will, and air your falsetto. If your
matter is not of the right poetic sort, you may consider yourself
to have met the requirements if you run over the names of the jury
in a rhythmic manner. Appeal constantly to the pathetic instinct,
smite your thigh, mouth your words well, punctuate with loud sighs,
and let your very back be eloquent as you pace to and fro. If the
audience fails to applaud, take offence, and give your offence
words; if they get up and prepare to go out in disgust, tell them
to sit down again; discipline must be maintained.
It will win you credit for copiousness, if you start with the
Trojan War--you may if you like go right hack to the nuptials of
Deucalion and Pyrrha--and thence trace your subject down to to-day.
People of sense, remember, are rare, and they will probably hold
their tongues out of charity; or if they do comment, it will be put
down to jealousy. The rest are awed by your costume, your voice,
gait, motions, falsetto, shoes, and_ sundry_; when they see
how you perspire and pant, they cannot admit a moment's doubt of
your being a very fine rhetorical performer. With them, your mere
rapidity is a miracle quite sufficient to establish your character.
Never prepare notes, then, nor think out a subject beforehand; that
shows one up at once.
Your friends' feet will be loud on the floor, in payment for the
dinners you give them; if they observe you in difficulties, they
will come to the rescue, and give you a chance, in the relief
afforded by rounds of applause, of thinking how to go on. A devoted
_claque_ of your own, by the way, is among your requirements.
Its use while you are performing I have given; and as you walk home
afterwards, discussing the points you made, you should be
absolutely surrounded by them as a bodyguard. If you meet
acquaintances on the way, talk very big about yourself, put a good
value on your merits, and never mind about their feelings. Ask
them, Where is Demosthenes now? Or wonder _which_ of the ancients
comes nearest you.
But dear me, I had very nearly passed over the most important and
effectual of all aids to reputation: the pouring of ridicule upon
your rivals. If a man has a fine style, its beauties are borrowed;
if a sober one, it is bad altogether. When you go to a recitation,
arrive late, which makes you conspicuous; and when all are
listening intently, interject some inappropriate commendation that
will distract and annoy the audience; they will be so sickened with
your offensive words that they cannot listen. And then do not wave
your hand too much--warm approval is rather low; and as to jumping
up, never do it more than once or twice. A slight smile is your
best expression; make it clear that you do not think much of the
thing. Only let your ears be critical, and you are sure of finding
plenty to condemn. In fact, all the qualities needed are easily
come by--audacity, effrontery, ready lying, indifference to
perjury, impartial jealousy, hatred, abuse, and skilful slander--
that is all you want to win you speedy credit and renown. So much
for your visible public life.
And in private you need draw the line at nothing, gambling, drink,
fornication, nor adultery; the last you should boast of, whether
truly or not; make no secret of it, but exhibit your notes from
real or imaginary frail ones. One of your aims should be to pass
for a pretty fellow, in much favour with the ladies; the report
will be professionally useful to you, your influence with the sex
being accounted for by your rhetorical eminence.
Master these instructions, young man--they are surely simple enough
not to overtax your powers--, and I confidently promise that you
shall soon be a first-class rhetorician like myself; after which I
need not tell you what great and what rapid advancement Rhetoric
will put in your way. You have but to look at me. My father was an
obscure person barely above a slave; he had in fact been one south
of Xois and Thmuis; my mother a common sempstress. I was myself not
without pretensions to beauty in my youth, which earned me a bare
living from a miserly ill-conditioned admirer; but I discovered
this easy short-cut, made my way to the top--for I had, if I may be
bold to say it, all the qualifications I told you of, confidence,
ignorance, and effrontery--, and at once found myself in a position
to change my name of Pothinus to one that levels me with the
children of Zeus and Leda. I then established myself in an old
dame's house, where I earned my keep by professing a passion for
her seventy years and her half-dozen remaining teeth, dentist's
gold and all. However, poverty reconciled me to my task; even for
those cold coffin kisses,_ fames _was_ condimentum optimum.
_And it was by the merest ill luck that I missed inheriting her
wealth--that damned slave who peached about the poison I had
bought!
I was turned out neck and crop, but even so I did not starve. I
have my professional position and am well known in the courts--
especially for collusion and the corruption-agency which I keep for
credulous litigants. My cases generally go against me; but the
palms at my door [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to
chapter end. ] are fresh and flower-crowned--springes to catch
woodcocks, you know. Then, to be the object of universal
detestation, to be distinguished only less for the badness of one's
character than for that of one's speeches, to be pointed at by
every finger as the famous champion of all-round villany--this
seems to me no inconsiderable attainment. And now you have my
advice; take it with the blessing of the great Goddess Lubricity.
It is the same that I gave myself long ago; and very thankful I
have been to myself for it. _
Ah! our admirable friend seems to have done. If you decide to take
his advice, you may regard yourself as practically arrived at your
goal. Keep his rules, and your path is clear; you may dominate the
courts, triumph in the lecture-room, be smiled on by the fair; your
bride shall be not, like your lawgiver and teacher's, an old woman
off the comic stage, but lovely dame Rhetoric. Plato told of Zeus
sweeping on in his winged car; you shall use the figure as fitly of
yourself. And I? why, I lack spirit and courage; I will stand out
of your way. I will resign--nay, I have resigned--my high place
about our lady's person to you; for I cannot pay my court to her
like the new school. Do your walk over, then, hear your name
announced, take your plaudits; I ask you only to remember that you
owe the victory not to your speed, but to your discovery of the
easy down-hill route.
[Note at end of piece: It is apparent from the later half of this
piece that the satire is aimed at an individual. He is generally
identified with Julius Pollux. This Pollux (1) was contemporary
(floruit A. D. 183) with Lucian. (2) Explains by his name the
reference to Leda's children (Castor and Pollux) in Section 24. (3)
Published an Onomasticon, or classified vocabulary; cf. Sections
16, 17. (4) Published a collection of declamations, or school
rhetorical exercises on set themes; cf. Section 17. (5) Came from
Egypt; cf. Section 24; Xois and Thmuis were in that country. (6) Is
said to have been appointed professor of rhetoric at Athens by
Commodus purely on account of his mellifluous voice; cf. Section
19.
It is supposed that _Lexiphanes_ (in the dialogue of that
name, which has much in common with the present satire) is also
Julius Pollux. ]
[Relocated Footnote:
Now stretch your throat, unhappy man! now raise
Your clamours, that, when hoarse, a bunch of bays,
Stuck in your garret window, may declare,
That some victorious pleader nestles there.
_Juvenal_, vii. 118 (Gifford). ]
THE LIAR
_Tychiades. Philocles_
_Tyc_. Philocles, what _is_ it that makes most men so fond of a
lie? Can you explain it? Their delight in romancing themselves is
only equalled by the earnest attention with which they receive
other people's efforts in the same direction.
_Phi_. Why, in some cases there is no lack of motives for
lying,--motives of self-interest.
_Tyc_. Ah, but that is neither here nor there. I am not
speaking of men who lie with an object. There is some excuse for
that: indeed, it is sometimes to their credit, when they deceive
their country's enemies, for instance, or when mendacity is but the
medicine to heal their sickness. Odysseus, seeking to preserve his
life and bring his companions safe home, was a liar of that kind.
The men I mean are innocent of any ulterior motive: they prefer a
lie to truth, simply on its own merits; they like lying, it is
their favourite occupation; there is no necessity in the case. Now
what good can they get out of it?
_Phi_. Why, have you ever known any one with such a strong
natural turn for lying?
_Tyc_. Any number of them.
_Phi_. Then I can only say they must be fools, if they really
prefer evil to good.
_Tyc_. Oh, that is not it. I could point you out plenty of men
of first-rate ability, sensible enough in all other respects, who
have somehow picked up this vice of romancing. It makes me quite
angry: what satisfaction can there be to men of their good
qualities in deceiving themselves and their neighbours? There are
instances among the ancients with which you must be more familiar
than I. Look at Herodotus, or Ctesias of Cnidus; or, to go further
back, take the poets--Homer himself: here are men of world-wide
celebrity, perpetuating their mendacity in black and white; not
content with deceiving their hearers, they must send their lies
down to posterity, under the protection of the most admirable
verse. Many a time I have blushed for them, as I read of the
mutilation of Uranus, the fetters of Prometheus, the revolt of the
Giants, the torments of Hell; enamoured Zeus taking the shape of
bull or swan; women turning into birds and bears; Pegasuses,
Chimaeras, Gorgons, Cyclopes, and the rest of it; monstrous medley!
fit only to charm the imaginations of children for whom Mormo and
Lamia have still their terrors. However, poets, I suppose, will be
poets. But when it comes to national lies, when one finds whole
cities bouncing collectively like one man, how is one to keep one's
countenance? A Cretan will look you in the face, and tell you that
yonder is Zeus's tomb. In Athens, you are informed that
Erichthonius sprang out of the Earth, and that the first Athenians
grew up from the soil like so many cabbages; and this story assumes
quite a sober aspect when compared with that of the Sparti, for
whom the Thebans claim descent from a dragon's teeth. If you
presume to doubt these stories, if you choose to exert your common
sense, and leave Triptolemus's winged aerial car, and Pan's
Marathonian exploits, and Orithyia's mishap, to the stronger
digestions of a Coroebus and a Margites, you are a fool and a
blasphemer, for questioning such palpable truths. Such is the power
of lies!
_Phi_. I must say I think there is some excuse, Tychiades,
both for your national liars and for the poets. The latter are
quite right in throwing in a little mythology: it has a very
pleasing effect, and is just the thing to secure the attention of
their hearers. On the other hand, the Athenians and the Thebans and
the rest are only trying to add to the lustre of their respective
cities. Take away the legendary treasures of Greece, and you
condemn the whole race of ciceroni to starvation: sightseers do not
want the truth; they would not take it at a gift. However, I
surrender to your ridicule any one who has no such motive, and yet
rejoices in lies.
_Tyc_. Very well: now I have just been with the great Eucrates, who
treated me to a whole string of old wives' tales. I came away in
the middle of it; he was too much for me altogether; Furies could
not have driven me out more effectually than his marvel-working
tongue.
_Phi_. What, Eucrates, of all credible witnesses? That venerably
bearded sexagenarian, with his philosophic leanings? I could never
have believed that he would lend his countenance to other people's
lies, much less that _he_ was capable of such things himself
_Tyc_. My dear sir, you should have heard the stuff he told
me; the way in which he vouched for the truth of it all too,
solemnly staking the lives of his children on his veracity! I
stared at him in amazement, not knowing what to make of it: one
moment I thought he must be out of his mind; the next I concluded
he had been a humbug all along, an ape in a lion's skin. Oh, it was
monstrous.
_Phi_. Do tell me all about it; I am curious to see the
quackery that shelters beneath so long a beard.
_Tyc_. I often look in on Eucrates when I have time on my
hands, but to-day I had gone there to see Leontichus; he is a
friend of mine, you know, and I understood from his boy that he had
gone off early to inquire after Eucrates's health, I had not heard
that there was anything the matter with him, but this was an
additional reason for paying him a visit. When I got there,
Leontichus had just gone away, so Eucrates said; but he had a
number of other visitors. There was Cleodemus the Peripatetic and
Dinomachus the Stoic, and Ion. You know Ion? he is the man who
fancies himself so much on his knowledge of Plato; if you take his
word for it, he is the only man who has ever really got to the
bottom of that philosopher's meaning, or is qualified to act as his
interpreter. There is a company for you; Wisdom and Virtue
personified, the _elite_ of every school, most reverend gentlemen
all of them; it almost frightened one. Then there was Antigonus the
doctor, who I suppose attended in his professional capacity.
Eucrates seemed to be better already: he had come to an
understanding with the gout, which had now settled down in his feet
again. He motioned me to a seat on the couch beside him. His voice
sank to the proper invalid level when he saw me coming, but on my
way in I had overheard him bellowing away most lustily. I made him
the usual compliments--explained that this was the first I had
heard of his illness, and that I had come to him post-haste--and
sat down at his side, in very gingerly fashion, lest I should touch
his feet. There had been a good deal of talk already about gout,
and this was still going on; each man had his pet prescription to
offer. Cleodemus was giving his. 'In the left hand take up the
tooth of a field-mouse, which has been killed in the manner
described, and attach it to the skin of a freshly flayed lion; then
bind the skin about your legs, and the pain will instantly cease. '
'A lion's skin? ' says Dinomachus; 'I understood it was an uncovered
hind's. That sounds more likely: a hind has more pace, you see, and
is particularly strong in the feet. A lion is a brave beast, I
grant you; his fat, his right fore-paw, and his beard-bristles, are
all very efficacious, if you know the proper incantation to use
with each; but they would hardly be much use for gout. ' 'Ah, yes;
that is what I used to think for a long time: a hind was fast, so
her skin must be the one for the purpose. But I know better now: a
Libyan, who understands these things, tells me that lions are
faster than stags; they must be, he says, because how else could
they catch them? 'All agreed that the Libyan's argument was
convincing. When I asked what good incantations could do, and how
an internal complaint could be cured by external attachments, I
only got laughed at for my pains; evidently they set me down as a
simpleton, ignorant of the merest truisms, that no one in his
senses would think of disputing. However, I thought doctor
Antigonus seemed rather pleased at my question. I expect his
professional advice had been slighted: he wanted to lower
Eucrates's tone,--cut down his wine, and put him on a vegetable
diet. 'What, Tychiades,' says Cleodemus, with a faint grin,' you
don't believe these remedies are good for anything? ' 'I should have
to be pretty far gone,' I replied, 'before I could admit that
external things, which have no communication with the internal
causes of disease, are going to work by means of incantations and
stuff, and effect a cure merely by being hung on. You might take
the skin of the Nemean lion himself, with a dozen of field-mice
tacked on, and you would do no good. Why, I have seen a live lion
limping before now, hide and all complete. ' 'Ah, you have a great
deal to learn,' cried Dinomachus; 'you have never taken the trouble
to inquire into the operation of these valuable remedies. It would
not surprise me to hear you disputing the most palpable facts, such
as the curing of tumours and intermittent fevers, the charming of
reptiles, and so on; things that every old woman can effect in
these days. And this being so, why should not the same principles
be extended further? ' 'Nail drives out nail,' I replied; 'you argue
in a circle. How do I know that these cures are brought about by
the means to which you attribute them? You have first to show
inductively that it is in the course of nature for a fever or a
tumour to take fright and bolt at the sound of holy names and
foreign incantations; till then, your instances are no better than
old wives' tales. ' 'In other words, you do not believe in the
existence of the Gods, since you maintain that cures cannot be
wrought by the use of holy names? ' 'Nay, say not so, my dear
Dinomachus,' I answered; 'the Gods may exist, and these things may
yet be lies. I respect the Gods: I see the cures performed by them,
I see their beneficence at work in restoring the sick through the
medium of the medical faculty and their drugs. Asclepius, and his
sons after him, compounded soothing medicines and healed the sick,
--without the lion's-skin-and-field-mouse process. '
'Never mind Asclepius,' cried Ion. 'I will tell you of a strange
thing that happened when I was a boy of fourteen or so.
