No More Learning

and
is the Emperor drugged with mandragora that he should hear of this
and never know the rest, your daylight iniquities, your tipplings,
your monstrous nightly debauches? Know you not that an Emperor has
many eyes and many ears? Yet _your_ deeds are such as cannot
be concealed from the blind or the deaf. I may tell you at once, as
you seem not to know it, that a man's hopes of the Imperial favour
depend not on his book-bills, but on his character and daily life.
Are you counting upon Atticus and Callinus, the copyists, to put in
a good word for you? Then you are deceived: those relentless
gentlemen propose, with the Gods' good leave, to grind you down and
reduce you to utter destitution. Come to your senses while there is
yet time: sell your library to some scholar, and whilst you are
about it sell your new house too, and wipe off part of your debt to
the slave-dealers.

You see, you will ride both these hobbies at once; there is the
trouble: besides your expensive books you must have your
superannuated minions; you are insatiable in these pursuits, and
you cannot follow both without money. Now observe how precious a
thing is counsel. I recommend you to dispense with the superfluous,
and confine your attention to your other foible; in other words,
keep your money for the slave-dealers, or your private supplies
will run short, and you will be reduced to calling in the services
of freemen, who will want every penny you possess; otherwise there
is nothing to prevent them from telling how your time is spent when
you are in liquor. Only the other day I heard some very ugly
stories about you--backed, too, by ocular evidence: the bystanders
on that occasion are my witnesses how angry I was on your account;
I was in two minds about giving the fellow a thrashing; and the
annoying part of it was that he appealed to more than one witness
who had had the same experience and told just the same tale. Let
this be a warning to you to economize, so that you may be able to
have your enjoyments at home in all security. I do not suggest that
you should give up these practices: that is quite hopeless; the dog
that has gnawed leather once will gnaw leather always.

On the other hand, you can easily do without books. Your education
is complete; you have nothing more to learn; you have the ancients
as it were on the tip of your tongue; all history is known to you;
you are a master of the choice and management of words, you have
got the true Attic vocabulary; the multitude of your books has made
a ripe scholar of you. (You love flattery, and there is no reason
why I should not indulge you as well as another. )

But I am rather curious on one point: what are your favourite books
among so many? Plato? Antisthenes? Archilochus? Hipponax? Or are
they passed over in favour of the orators? Do you ever read the
speech of Aeschines against Timarchus? All that sort of thing I
suppose you have by heart. And have you grappled with Aristophanes
and Eupolis? Did you ever go through the _Baptae_ [Footnote:
See Cotytto in Notes. ]? Well then, you must surely have come on
some embarrassing home-truths in that play? It is difficult to
imagine that mind of yours bent upon literary studies, and those
hands turning over the pages. When do you do your reading? In the
daytime, or at night? If the former, you must do it when no one is
looking: and if the latter, is it done in the midst of more
engrossing pursuits, or do you work it in before your rhetorical
outpourings? As you reverence Cotytto, venture not again into the
paths of literature; have done with books, and keep to your own
peculiar business. If you had any sense of shame, to be sure, you
would abandon that too: think of Phaedra's indignant protest
against her sex:

Darkness is their accomplice, yet they fear not,
Fear not the chamber-walls, their confidants.

But no: you are determined not to be cured. Very well: buy book
upon book, shut them safely up, and reap the glory that comes of
possession: only, let that be enough; presume not to touch nor
read; pollute not with that tongue the poetry and eloquence of the
ancients; what harm have they ever done to you?

All this advice is thrown away, I know that. Shall an Ethiopian
change his skin? You will go on buying books that you cannot use--
to the amusement of educated men, who derive profit not from the
price of a book, nor from its handsome appearance, but from the
sense and sound of its contents. You think by the multitude of
books to supply the deficiencies of your education, and to throw
dust in our eyes. Did you but know it, you are exactly like the
quack doctors, who provide themselves with silver cupping-glasses,
gold-handled lancets, and ivory cases for their instruments; they
are quite incapable of using them when the time comes, and have to
give place to some properly qualified surgeon, who produces a
lancet with a keen edge and a rusty handle, and affords immediate
relief to the sufferer. Or here is a better parallel: take the case
of the barbers: you will find that the skilled practitioners have
just the razor, scissors, and mirror that their work requires: the
impostors' razors are numerous, and their mirrors magnificent.
However, that does not serve to conceal their incompetence, and the
result is most amusing: the average man gets his hair cut by one of
their more capable neighbours, and then goes and arranges it before
_their_ glasses. That is just what your books are good for--to
lend to other people; you are quite incapable of using them
yourself. Not that you ever have lent any one a single volume; true
to your dog-in-the-manger principles, you neither eat the corn
yourself, nor give the horse a chance.

There you have my candid opinion about your books: I shall find
other opportunities of dealing with your disreputable conduct in
general.






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Title: The Works of Lucian of Samosata, v. 4

Author: Lucian of Samosata

Translator: H W Fowler
F G Fowler

Release Date: October 30, 2014 [EBook #47242]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LUCIAN ***




Produced by Richard Tonsing, Colin Bell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









THE WORKS OF
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA

Complete with exceptions specified in the preface


TRANSLATED BY

H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER

IN FOUR VOLUMES

What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren
domestic soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the
fewest are privileged to do. --_Sartor Resartus. _

At each flaw, be this your first thought: the author doubtless said
something quite different, and much more to the point. And then you may
hiss _me_ off, if you will. --LUCIAN, _Nigrinus_, 9.

(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit. --_Lord
Macaulay. _

VOLUME IV

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1905

HENRY FROWDE, M. A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO




CONTENTS OF VOL. IV


PAGE

SLANDER, A WARNING 1
#Peri tou mê rhadiôs pisteuein diabolê. #

THE HALL 12
#Peri tou oikou. #

PATRIOTISM 23
#Patridos enkômion. #

DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE 26
#Peri tôn dipsadôn. #

A WORD WITH HESIOD 30
#Dialexis pros Hêsiodon. #

THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES 33
#Ploion ê euchai. #

DIALOGUES OF THE HETAERAE 52-78
#Hetairikoi dialogoi. #

I, 52; II, 53; III, 55; IV, 57; VII, 60; VIII, 62;
IX, 64; XI, 67; XII, 69; XIII, 72; XIV, 75; XV, 77.

THE DEATH OF PEREGRINE 79
#Peri tês Peregrinou teleutês. #

THE RUNAWAYS 95
#Drapetai. #

SATURNALIA 108
#Ta pros Kronon. #

CRONOSOLON 113
#Kronosolôn. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, I 117
#Epistolai Kronikai, a. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, II 120
#Epistolai Kronikai, b. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, III 123
#Epistolai Kronikai, g. #

SATURNALIAN LETTERS, IV 126
#Epistolai Kronikai, d. #

A FEAST OF LAPITHAE 127
#Symposion ê Lapithai. #

DEMOSTHENES, AN ENCOMIUM 145
#Dêmosthenous enkômion. #

THE GODS IN COUNCIL 165
#Theôn ekklêsia. #

THE CYNIC 172
#Kynikos. #

THE PURIST PURIZED 181
#Pseudosophistês ê soloikistês. #

NOTES EXPLANATORY OF ALLUSIONS TO PERSONS, &C 191

ALPHABETICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 245




SLANDER, A WARNING


A terrible thing is ignorance, the source of endless human woes,
spreading a mist over facts, obscuring truth, and casting a gloom
upon the individual life. We are all walkers in darkness--or say, our
experience is that of blind men, knocking helplessly against the real,
and stepping high to clear the imaginary, failing to see what is close
at their feet, and in terror of being hurt by something that is leagues
away. Whatever we do, we are perpetually slipping about. This it is
that has found the tragic poets a thousand themes, Labdacids, Pelopids,
and all their kind. Inquiry would show that most of the calamities
put upon the boards are arranged by ignorance as by some supernatural
stage-manager. This is true enough as a generality; but I refer more
particularly to the false reports about intimates and friends that have
ruined families, razed cities, driven fathers into frenzy against their
offspring, embroiled brother with brother, children with parents, and
lover with beloved.
Many are the friendships that have been cut short,
many the households set by the ears, because slander has found ready
credence.

By way of precaution against it, then, it is my design to sketch the
nature, the origin, and effects of slander, though indeed the picture
is already in existence, by the hand of Apelles. He had been traduced
in the ears of Ptolemy as an accomplice of Theodotas in the Tyrian
conspiracy. As a matter of fact he had never seen Tyre, and knew
nothing of Theodotas beyond the information that he was an officer of
Ptolemy's in charge of Phoenicia. However, that did not prevent another
painter called Antiphilus, who was jealous of his court influence and
professional skill, from reporting his supposed complicity to Ptolemy:
he had seen him at Theodotas's table in Phoenicia, whispering in his
ear all through dinner; he finally got as far as making Apelles out
prime instigator of the Tyrian revolt and the capture of Pelusium.

Ptolemy was not distinguished for sagacity; he had been brought up on
the royal diet of adulation; and the incredible tale so inflamed and
carried him away that the probabilities of the case never struck him:
the traducer was a professional rival; a painter's insignificance was
hardly equal to the part; and this particular painter had had nothing
but good at his hands, having been exalted by him above his fellows.
But no, he did not even find out whether Apelles had ever made a voyage
to Tyre; it pleased him to fall into a passion and make the palace
ring with denunciations of the ingrate, the plotter, the conspirator.
Luckily one of the prisoners, between disgust at Antiphilus's
effrontery and compassion for Apelles, stated that the poor man had
never been told a word of their designs; but for this, he would have
paid with his head for his non-complicity in the Tyrian troubles.

Ptolemy was sufficiently ashamed of himself, we learn, to make Apelles
a present of £25,000, besides handing Antiphilus over to him as a
slave. The painter was impressed by his experience, and took his
revenge upon Slander in a picture.

On the right sits a man with long ears almost of the Midas pattern,
stretching out a hand to Slander, who is still some way off, but
coming. About him are two females whom I take for Ignorance and
Assumption. Slander, approaching from the left, is an extraordinarily
beautiful woman, but with a heated, excitable air that suggests
delusion and impulsiveness; in her left hand is a lighted torch, and
with her right she is haling a youth by the hair; he holds up hands to
heaven and calls the Gods to witness his innocence. Showing Slander
the way is a man with piercing eyes, but pale, deformed, and shrunken
as from long illness; one may easily guess him to be Envy. Two female
attendants encourage Slander, acting as tire-women, and adding touches
to her beauty; according to the _cicerone_, one of these is Malice,
and the other Deceit. Following behind in mourning guise, black-robed
and with torn hair, comes (I think he named her) Repentance. She looks
tearfully behind her, awaiting shame-faced the approach of Truth. That
was how Apelles translated his peril into paint.

I propose that we too execute in his spirit a portrait of Slander and
her surroundings; and to avoid vagueness let us start with a definition
or outline. Slander, we will say, is an undefended indictment,
concealed from its object, and owing its success to one-sided
half-informed procedure. Now we have something to go upon. Further, our
actors, as in comedy[1], are three--the slanderer, the slandered, and
the recipient of the slander; let us take each in turn and see how his
case works out.

And first for our chief character, the manufacturer of the slander.
That he is not a good man needs no proof; no good man will injure his
neighbour; good men's reputation, and their credit for kindness, is
based on the benefits they confer upon their friends, not on unfounded
disparagement of others and the ousting of them from their friends'
affections.

Secondly, it is easy to realize that such a person offends against
justice, law, and piety, and is a pest to all who associate with
him. Equality in everything, and contentment with your proper share,
are the essentials of justice; inequality and over-reaching, of
injustice; _that_ every one will admit. It is not less clear that the
man who secretly slanders the absent is guilty of over-reaching; he
is insisting on entire possession of his hearer, appropriating and
enclosing his ears, guarding them against impartiality by blocking
them with prejudice. Such procedure is unjust to the last degree; we
have the testimony of the best lawgivers for that; Solon and Draco
made every juror swear that he would hear indifferently, and view both
parties with equal benevolence, till the defence should have been
compared with the prosecution and proved better or worse than it.
Before such balancing of the speeches, they considered that the forming
of a conclusion must be impious and unholy. We may indeed literally
suppose Heaven to be offended, if we license the accuser to say what he
will, and then, closing our own ears or the defendant's mouth, allow
our judgement to be dictated by the first speech. No one can say, then,
that the uttering of slander is reconcilable with the requirements of
justice, of law, or of the juror's oath. If it is objected that the
lawgivers are no sufficient authority for such extreme justice and
impartiality, I fall back on the prince of poets, who has expressed a
sound opinion, or let me say, laid down a sound law on the subject:

Nor give thy judgement, till both sides are heard.

He too was doubtless very well aware that, of all the ills that flesh
is heir to, none is more grievous or more iniquitous than that a man
should be condemned unjudged and unheard. That is precisely what the
slanderer tries to effect by exposing the slandered without trial
to his hearer's wrath, and precluding defence by the secrecy of his
denunciation.

Every such person is a skulker and a coward; he will not come into the
open; he is an ambuscader shooting from a lurking-place, whose opponent
cannot meet him nor have it out with him, but must be shot down
helplessly before he knows that war is afoot; there could be no clearer
proof that his allegations are baseless. Of course a man who knows
he is bringing true charges does the exposure in public, challenges
inquiry, and faces examination; just so no one who can win a pitched
battle will resort to ambush and deceit.

It is in kings' courts that these creatures are mostly found; they
thrive in the atmosphere of dominion and power, where envy is rife,
suspicions innumerable, and the opportunities for flattery and
back-biting endless. Where hopes are higher, there envy is more
intense, hatred more reckless, and jealousy more unscrupulous. They
all keep close watch upon one another, spying like duellists for a
weak spot. Every one would be first, and to that end shoves and elbows
his neighbour aside, and does his best to pull back or trip the man in
front of him. One whose equipment is limited to goodness is very soon
thrown down, dragged about, and finally thrust forth with ignominy;
while he who is prepared to flatter, and can make servility plausible,
is high in credit, gets first to his end, and triumphs. These people
bear out the words of Homer:

Th' impartial War-God slayeth him that slew.

Convinced that the prize is great, they elaborate their mutual
stratagems, among which slander is at once the speediest and the most
uncertain; high are the hopes with which this child of envy or hatred
is born; pitiful, gloomy and disastrous the end to which it comes.

Success is by no means the easy simple matter it may be supposed; it
demands much skill and tact, with the most concentrated attention.
Slander would never do the harm it does, if it were not made plausible;
it would never prevail against truth, that strongest of all things, if
it were not dressed up into really attractive bait.

The chief mark for it is the man who is in favour, and therefore
enviable in the eyes of his distanced competitors; they all regard
him as standing in their light, and let fly at him; every one thinks
he will be first if he can only dispose of this conspicuous person and
spoil him of his favour. You may see the same thing among runners at
the games. The good runner, from the moment the barrier falls, simply
makes the best of his way; his thoughts are on the winning-post,
his hopes of victory in his feet; he leaves his neighbour alone and
does not concern himself at all with his competitors. It is the ill
qualified, with no prospect of winning by his speed, who resorts to
foul play; his one pre-occupation is how he may stop, impede, curb
the real runner, because failing that his own victory is out of the
question. The persons we are concerned with race in like manner for the
favour of the great. The one who forges ahead is at once the object of
plots, is taken at a disadvantage by his enemies when his thoughts are
elsewhere, and got rid of, while they get credit for devotion by the
harm they do to others.

The credibility of the slander is by no means left to take care of
itself; it is the chief object of their solicitude; they are extremely
cautious against inconsistencies or contradictions. The usual method is
to seize upon real characteristics of a victim, and only paint these in
darker colours, which allows verisimilitude. A man is a doctor; they
make him out a poisoner; wealth figures as tyranny; the tyrant's ready
tool is a ready traitor too.

Sometimes, however, the hint is taken from the hearer's own nature;
the villains succeed by using a bait that will tempt _him_. They
know he is jealous, and they tell him: 'He beckoned to your wife at
dinner, and sighed as he gazed at her; and Stratonice--well, did not
seem offended. ' Or he writes poetry, and piques himself upon it; then,
'Philoxenus had great sport pulling your poem to pieces--said the metre
was faulty and the composition vile. ' A devout religious person is told
that his friend is an atheist and a blasphemer, rejects belief and
denies Providence. That is quite enough; the venom has entered at the
ear and inflamed the brain; the man does not wait for confirmation, but
abandons his friend.

In a word, they invent and say the kind of thing that they know will
be most irritating to their hearer, and having a full knowledge of his
vulnerable point, concentrate their fire upon it; he is to be too much
flustered by rage to have time for investigation; the very surprise of
what he is told is to be so convincing to him that he will not hear,
even if his friend is willing to plead.

That slander, indeed, is especially effective which is unwelcome;
Demetrius the Platonic was reported to Ptolemy Dionysus for a water
drinker, and for the only man who had declined to put on female attire
at the Dionysia. He was summoned next morning, and had to drink in
public, dress up in gauze, clash and dance to the cymbals, or he would
have been put to death for disapproving the King's life, and setting up
for a critic of his luxurious ways.

At Alexander's court there was no more fatal imputation than that of
refusing worship and adoration to Hephaestion. Alexander had been
so fond of him that to appoint him a God after his death was, for
such a worker of marvels, nothing out of the way. The various cities
at once built temples to him, holy ground was consecrated, altars,
offerings and festivals instituted to this new divinity; if a man
would be believed, he must swear by Hephaestion. For smiling at these
proceedings, or showing the slightest lack of reverence, the penalty
was death. The flatterers cherished, fanned, and put the bellows to
this childish fancy of Alexander's; they had visions and manifestations
of Hephaestion to relate; they invented cures and attributed oracles
to him; they did not stop short of doing sacrifice to this God of Help
and Protection. Alexander was delighted, and ended by believing in it
all; it gratified his vanity to think that he was now not only a God's
son, but a God-maker. It would be interesting to know how many of his
friends in those days found that what the new divinity did for them was
to supply a charge of irreverence on which they might be dismissed and
deprived of the King's favour.

Agathocles of Samos was a valued officer of his, who very narrowly
escaped being thrown into a lion's cage; the offence reported against
him was shedding tears as he passed Hephaestion's tomb. The tale
goes that he was saved by Perdiccas, who swore, by all the Gods and
Hephaestion, that the God had appeared plainly to him as he was
hunting, and charged him to bid Alexander spare Agathocles: his tears
had meant neither scepticism nor mourning, but been merely a tribute to
the friendship that was gone.

Flattery and slander had just then their opportunity in Alexander's
emotional condition. In a siege, the assailants do not attempt a part
of the defences that is high, precipitous, or solid; they direct all
their force at some rotten, low, or neglected point, expecting to get
in and effect the capture most easily so. Similarly the slanderer finds
out where the soul is weak or corrupt or accessible, there makes his
assault, there applies his engines, or effects an entry at a point
where there are no defenders to mark his approach. Once in, he soon has
all in flames; fire and sword and devastation clear out the previous
occupants; how else should it be when a soul is captured and enslaved?

His siege-train includes deceit, falsehood, perjury, insinuation,
effrontery, and a thousand other moral laxities. But the chief of them
all is Flattery, the blood relation, the sister indeed, of Slander. No
heart so high, so fenced with adamant, but Flattery will master it,
with the aid of Slander undermining and sapping its foundations.

That is what goes on outside. But within there are traitorous parties
working to the same end, stretching hands of help to the attack,
opening the gates, and doing their utmost to bring the capture about.
There are those ever-present human frailties, fickleness and satiety;
there is the appetite for the surprising. We all delight, I cannot tell
why, in whisperings and insinuations. I know people whose ears are as
agreeably titillated with slander as their skin with a feather.

Supported by all these allies, the attack prevails; victory is hardly
in doubt for a moment; there is no defence or resistance to the
assault; the hearer surrenders without reluctance, and the slandered
knows nothing of what is going on; as when a town is stormed by night,
he has his throat cut in his sleep.

The most pitiful thing is when, all unconscious of how matters stand,
he comes to his friend with a cheerful countenance, having nothing to
be ashamed of, and talks and behaves as usual, just as if the toils
were not all round him. Then if the other has any nobility or generous
spirit of fair play in him, he gives vent to his anger and pours out
his soul; after which he allows him to answer, and so finds out how he
has been abused.

But if he is mean and ignoble, he receives him with a lip smile,
while he is gnashing his teeth in covert rage, wrathfully brooding in
the soul's dark depth, as the poet describes it. I know nothing so
characteristic of a warped slavish nature as to bite the lip while
you nurse your spite and cultivate your secret hatred, one thing in
your heart and another on your tongue, playing with the gay looks of
comedy a lamentable sinister tragedy. This is especially apt to occur,
when the slander comes from one who is known for an old friend of the
slandered. When that is the case, a man pays no attention to anything
the victim or his apologists may say; that old friendship affords a
sufficient presumption of truth; he forgets that estrangements, unknown
to outsiders, constantly part the greatest friends; and sometimes a man
will try to escape the consequences of his own faults by attributing
similar ones to his neighbour and getting his denunciation in first.
It may be taken, indeed, that no one will venture to slander an enemy;
that is too unconvincing; the motive is so obvious. It is the supposed
friend that is the most promising object, the idea being to give your
hearer absolute proof of your devotion to him by sacrificing your
dearest to his interests.

It must be added that there are persons who, if they subsequently learn
that they have condemned a friend in error, are too much ashamed of
that error to receive or look him in the face again; you might suppose
the discovery of his innocence was a personal injury to them.

It is not, then, too much to say that life is made miserable by these
lightly and incuriously credited slanders. Antea said to Proetus, after
she had solicited and been scorned by Bellerophon:

Die thou the death, if thou slay not the man
That so would have enforc'd my chastity!

By the machinations of this lascivious woman, the young man came near
perishing in his combat with the Chimera, as the penalty for continence
and loyalty to his host. And Phaedra, who made a similar charge against
her stepson, succeeded in bringing down upon Hippolytus a father's
curse, though God knows how innocent he was.

'Ah, yes,' I fancy some one objecting; 'but the traducer sometimes
deserves credit, being known for a just and a wise man; then he ought
to be listened to, as one incapable of villany. ' What? was there ever
a juster man than Aristides? yet he led the opposition to Themistocles
and incited the people against him, pricked by the same political
ambition as he. Aristides was a just man in all other relations; but he
was human, he had a gall, he was open to likes and dislikes.

And if the story of Palamedes is true, the wisest of the Greeks, a
great man in other respects too, stands convicted of hatching that
insidious plot[2]; the ties that bind kinsmen, friends, and comrades in
danger, had to yield to jealousy. To be a man is to be subject to this
temptation.

It is superfluous to refer to Socrates, misrepresented to the Athenians
as an impious plotter, to Themistocles or Miltiades, suspected after
all their victories of betraying Greece; such examples are innumerable,
and most of them familiar.

What, then, should a man of sense do, when he finds one friend's virtue
pitted against another's truth? Why, surely, learn from Homer's parable
of the Sirens; he advises sailing past these ear-charmers; we should
stuff up our ears; we should not open them freely to the prejudiced,
but station there a competent hall-porter in the shape of Judgement,
who shall inspect every vocal visitor, and take it on himself to
admit the worthy, but shut the door in the face of others. How absurd
to have such an official at our house door, and leave our ears and
understandings open to intrusion!

So, when any one comes to you with a tale, examine it on its merits,
regardless of the informant's age, general conduct, or skill in speech.
The more plausible he is, the greater need of care. Never trust
another's judgement--it may be in reality only his dislike--but reserve
the inquiry to yourself; let envy, if such it was, recoil upon the
backbiter, your trial of the two men's characters be an open one, and
your award of contempt and approval deliberate. To award them earlier,
carried away by the first word of slander--why, God bless me, how
puerile and mean and iniquitous it all is!

And the cause of it, as we started with saying, is ignorance, and the
mystery that conceals men's characters. Would some God unveil all lives
to us, Slander would retire discomfited to the bottomless pit; for the
illumination of truth would be over all.

H.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 'Cratinus was the first to limit the number of actors to three. . . .
There were no further innovations, and the number of the actors in
comedy was permanently fixed at three. ' Haigh's _Attic Theatre_.

[2] Odysseus.




THE HALL


As Alexander stood gazing at the transparent loveliness of the Cydnus,
the thought of a plunge into those generous depths, of the delicious
shock of ice-cold waters amid summer heat, was too much for him; and
could he have foreseen the illness that was to result from it, I
believe he would have had his bath just the same. With such an example
before him, can any one whose pursuits are literary miss a chance of
airing his eloquence amid the glories of this spacious hall, wherein
gold sheds all its lustre, whose walls are decked with the flowers of
art, whose light is as the light of the sun? Shall he who might cause
this roof to ring with applause, and contribute his humble share to
the splendours of the place,--shall such a one content himself with
examining and admiring its beauties without a word, and so depart, like
one that is dumb, or silent from envy? No man of taste or artistic
sensibility, none but a dull ignorant boor, would consent thus to
cut himself off from the highest of enjoyments, or could need to be
reminded of the difference between the ordinary spectator and the
educated man. The former, when he has carried his eyes around and
upwards in silent admiration, and clasped ecstatic hands, has done
all that can be expected of him; he ventures not on words, lest they
should prove inadequate to his subject. With the cultured observer,
it is otherwise: he, surely, will not rest content with feasting
his eyes on beauty; he will not stand speechless amid his splendid
surroundings, but will set his mind to work, and as far as in him lies
pay verbal tribute. Nor will his tribute consist in mere praise of the
building. It was well enough, no doubt, for the islander Telemachus to
express his boyish amazement in the palace of Menelaus, and to liken
that prince's gold and ivory to the glories of Heaven;--his limited
experience afforded him no earthly parallel: but here, the very use to
which the hall is put, and the distinguished quality of the audience,
are an essential part of the praise bestowed upon it.

Nothing, surely, could be more delightful than to find this noble
building thrown open for the reception of eloquent praise, its
atmosphere laden with panegyric, its very walls reechoing, cavern-like,
to every syllable, prolonging each cadence, dwelling on each
period;--nay, they are themselves an audience, most appreciative
of audiences, that stores up the speaker's words in memory, and
recompenses his efforts with a meed of most harmonious flattery. Even
so do the rocks resound to the shepherd's flute; the notes come ringing
back again, and simple rustics think it is the voice of some maid, who
dwells among the crags, and from the depths of her rocky haunt makes
answer to their songs and their cries.

I feel as if a certain mental exaltation resulted from this
magnificence: it is suggestive; the imagination is stimulated. It
would scarcely be too much to say that through the medium of the eyes
Beauty is borne in upon the mind, and suffers no thought to find
utterance before it has received her impress. We hold it for true that
Achilles' wrath was whetted against the Phrygians by the sight of his
new armour, and that as he donned it for the first time his lust of
battle was uplifted on wings: and why should not a beautiful building
similarly be a whet to the zeal of the orator? Luxuriant grass, a
fine plane-tree and a clear spring, hard by Ilissus, were inspiration
enough for Socrates: in such a spot he could sit bantering Phaedrus,
refuting Lysias, and invoking the Muses; never doubting--indelicate old
person--but that those virgin Goddesses would grace his retirement with
their presence, and take part in his amorous discourse. But to such a
place as this we may surely hope that they will come uninvited. We can
offer them something better than the shade of a plane-tree, though
for that upon Ilissus' bank we should substitute the golden one of the
Persian King. His tree had one claim to admiration--it was expensive:
but for symmetry and proportion and beautiful workmanship, nothing of
that kind was thrown in; the gold was gold, an uncouth manifestation of
solid wealth, calculated to excite envy in the beholder, and to procure
congratulations for the possessor, but far from creditable to the
artist. The line of the Arsacidae cared nothing for beauty; they did
not appeal to men's taste; not _How may I win approval? _ but _How may
I dazzle? _ was the question they asked themselves. The barbarian has a
keen appreciation of gold: to the treasures of art he is blind.

But I see about me in this Hall beauties that were never designed to
please barbarians, nor to gratify the vulgar ostentation of Persian
monarchs. Poverty is not here the sole requirement of the critic:
taste is also necessary; nor will the eyes deliver judgement without
the assistance of Reason. The eastern aspect, procuring us, as in the
temples of old, that first welcome peep of the sun in his new-born
glory, and suffering his rays to pour in without stint through the
open doors, the adaptation of length to breadth and breadth to height,
the free admission of light at every stage of the Sun's course,--all
is charmingly contrived, and redounds to the credit of the architect.
What admirable judgement has been shown, too, in the structure and
decoration of the roof! nothing wanting, yet nothing superfluous; the
gilding is exactly what was required to achieve elegance without empty
display; it is precisely that little touch of adornment with which a
beautiful and modest woman sets off her loveliness; it is the slender
necklace about her neck, the light ring upon her finger, the earrings,
the brooch, the fillet that imprisons her luxuriant hair, and, like the
purple stripe upon a robe, enhances its beauty. Contrast with this
the artifices of courtesans, and particularly of the most unlovely
among them, whose robes are _all_ of purple, and their necks loaded
with golden chains, who hope to render themselves attractive by their
extravagance, and by external adornments to supply the deficiencies of
Nature; their arms, they think, will look more dazzlingly white if gold
glitters upon them, a clumsy foot pass unobserved if hidden in a golden
sandal, and the face be irresistible that appears beneath a halo of
gold. The modest house, far from resorting to such meretricious charms,
uses as little gold as may be; I think she knows that she would have no
cause to blush, though she should display her beauty stripped of all
adornment.

And so it is with this Hall. The roof--the head, as I may say,--comely
in itself, is not without its golden embellishments: yet they are but
as the stars, whose fires gleam here and there, pranked in the darkness
of the sky. Were that sky all fire, it would be beautiful to us no
longer, only terrible. Observe, too, that the gold is not otiose, not
merely an ornament among ornaments, put there to flatter the eye: it
diffuses soft radiance from end to end of the building, and the walls
are tinged with its warm glow. Striking upon the gilded beams, and
mingling its brightness with theirs, the daylight glances down upon us
with a clearness and a richness not all its own. Such are the glories
overhead, whose praises might best be sung by him who told of Helen's
high-vaulted chamber, and Olympus' dazzling peak.

And for the rest, the frescoed walls, with their exquisite colouring,
so clear, so highly finished, so true to nature, to what can I compare
them but to a flowery meadow in spring? Even so the comparison halts.
Those flowers wither and decay and shed their beauty: but here is one
eternal spring; this meadow fades not, its flowers are everlasting; for
no hand is put forth to pluck away their sweetness, only the eye feeds
thereon. And what eye would not delight to feed on joys so varied?
What orator would not feel that his credit was at stake, and be fired
with ambition to surpass himself, rather than be found wanting to his
theme?

The contemplation of beautiful objects is of all things the most
inspiring, and not to men only. I think even a horse must feel some
increase of pleasure in galloping over smooth, soft fields, that give
an easy footing, and ring back no defiance to his hoofs: it is then
that he goes his best; the beauty of his surroundings puts him on his
mettle; he will not be beaten, if pace counts for anything. And look
at the peacock. Spring has just begun; never are flowers a gladder
sight than now; it is as if they were really brighter, their hues more
fresh, than at other times. Watch the bird, as he struts forth into
some meadow: he spreads his feathers, and displays them to the Sun; up
goes his tail, a towered circle of flowery plumage; for with him too
it is spring, and the meadow challenges him to do his utmost. See how
he turns about, and shows forth his gorgeous beauty. As the sun's rays
strike upon him, the wonder grows: there is a subtle transmutation of
colours, one glory vanishing and giving place to another. The change is
nowhere more apparent than in those rainbow rings at the ends of his
feathers: here a slight movement turns bronze to gold, and (such is
the potency of light) purple becomes green, because sun is exchanged
for shadow. As for the sea, I need not remind you how inviting, how
attractive, is its appearance on a calm day: the veriest landlubber
must long to be upon it, and sail far away from the shore, as he marks
how the light breeze fills the sails and speeds the vessel on its
gentle gliding course over the crests of the waves.

The beauty of this Hall has a similar power over the orator,
encouraging him, stimulating him to fresh effort, enlarging his
ambition. The spell was irresistible: I have yielded to it, and come
hither to address you, as though drawn by wryneck's or by Siren's
charm; nor am I without hope that my words, bald though they be in
themselves, may yet borrow something from that atmosphere of beauty in
which they are here clothed as in a garment.

Scarcely have I pronounced these last words, when a certain Theory (and
a very sound one, too, if we can take its own word for it), which has
been interrupting me all along, and doing its best to break my speech
off, informs me that there is no truth in my statements, and expresses
its surprise at my assertion that gilding and mural decoration are
favourable to the display of rhetorical skill. The very contrary,
it maintains, is the case. On second thoughts, it may as well come
forward and plead its own cause; you, gentlemen, will kindly serve as
jury, and hear what it has to say in favour of the cheap and nasty in
architecture, considered as rhetorical conditions. My own sentiments
on this subject you have already heard, nor is there any occasion for
me to repeat them. The Theory is therefore at liberty to speak; I will
withdraw for a while, and hold my tongue.

'Gentlemen of the jury,' it begins, 'a splendid tribute has been paid
to this Hall by the last speaker; and I for my part am so far from
having any fault to find with the building, that I propose to supply
the deficiencies of his encomium; for by magnifying its glories, I am
so much the nearer to proving my point, which is, its unsuitableness
to the purposes of the orator. And first I shall ask your permission
to avail myself of his simile of feminine adornments. In my opinion,
it is not enough to say that lavish ornament adds nothing to feminine
beauty: it actually takes away from it. Dazzled by gold and costly
gems, how should the beholder do justice to the charms of a clear
complexion, to neck, and eye, and arm, and finger? Sards and emeralds,
bracelets and necklaces, claim all his attention, and the lady has the
mortification of finding herself eclipsed by her own jewels, whose
engrossed admirers can spare no words, and barely a casual glance for
herself. The same fate, it seems to me, awaits the orator who exhibits
his skill amid these wondrous works of art: his praises are obscured,
quite swallowed up, in the splendour of the things he praises. It is as
if a man should bring a wax light to feed a mighty conflagration, or
set up an ant for exhibition on a camel's or an elephant's back. That
is one pitfall for the orator. And there is another: the distracting
influence of that resonant music that echoes through the Hall, making
voluminous answer to his words, nay, drowning them in the utterance;
surely as trumpet quells flute, or the sea-roar the boatswain's pipe,
if he presume to contend with the crash of waves, so surely shall the
orator's puny voice be overmastered by this mighty music, and seem like
silence.

'Then again, my opponent spoke of the stimulating, the encouraging
effect produced on the speaker by architectural beauty. I should
have said that the effect was rather dispiriting than otherwise: the
speaker's thoughts are scattered, and his confidence shaken, as he
reflects on the disgrace that must attach to mean words uttered beneath
a noble roof. There could be no more crushing ignominy; he is precisely
in the position of a warrior in brilliant armour who sets the example
of flight, and whose cowardice is only emphasized by his splendid
equipment. To this principle I should refer the conduct of Homer's
model orator, who, so far from attaching any importance to externals,
affected the bearing of a man that was altogether witless; his design
was to bring his eloquence into stronger relief by the studied
ungracefulness of his attitude.

'The orator's mind, too, is so engrossed with what he sees, that it is
absolutely impossible for him to preserve the thread of his discourse;
he cannot think of what he is saying, so imperatively do the sights
around him claim his attention. It is not to be expected that he will
do himself justice: he is too full of his subject. And I might add that
his supposed hearers, when they come into such a building as this, are
no longer hearers of _his_ eloquence, but spectators of _its_ beauties;
he must be a Thamyris, an Amphion, an Orpheus among orators who could
gain their attention in such circumstances. Once let a man cross this
threshold, and a blaze of beauty envelops his senses; he is all eyes,
and to the orator is "as one that marketh not";--unless, indeed, he be
altogether blind, or take a hint from the court of Areopagus, and give
audience in the dark. Compare the story of the Sirens with that of the
Gorgons, if you would know how insignificant is the power of words in
comparison with that of visible objects. The enchantments of the former
were at the best a matter of time; they did but flatter the ear with
pleasing songs; if the mariner landed, he remained long on their hands,
and it has even happened to them to be disregarded altogether. But the
beauty of the Gorgons, irresistible in might, won its way to the inmost
soul, and wrought amazement and dumbness in the beholder; admiration
(so the legend goes) turned him to stone. All that my opponent has just
said about the peacock illustrates my point: that bird charms not the
ear, but the eye. Take a swan, take a nightingale, and set her singing:
now put a silent peacock at her side, and I will tell you which bird
has the attention of the company. The songstress may go hang now; so
invincible a thing is the pleasure of the eyes. Shall I call evidence?