No More Learning

Charmides_

_Try. _ Well, to be sure! Get a girl to keep company with you, and then
turn your back on her! Nothing but tears and groans! The wine was not
good enough, I suppose, and you didn't want a _tête-à-tête_ dinner. Oh
yes, I saw you were crying at dinner too. And now it is one continued
wail like a baby's. What _is_ it all about, Charmides? _Do_ tell me;
let me get that much out of my evening with you.

_Ch. _ Love is killing me, Tryphaena; I can stand it no longer.

_Try. _ It is not love for me, that is clear. You would not be so cold
to me, and push me away when I want to put my arms round you. It really
is not fair to keep me off like this! Never mind, tell me who it is;
perhaps I may help you to her; I know one ought to make oneself useful.

_Ch. _ Oh, you two know each other quite well; she is quite a celebrity.

_Try. _ Name, name, Charmides!

_Ch. _ Well then--Philematium.

_Try. _ Which? there are two of them; one in Piraeus, who has only just
come there; Damyllus the governor's son is in love with her; is it that
one? or the other, the one they call The Trap?

_Ch. _ Yes, that is she; she has caught me and got me tight, poor mouse.

_Try. _ And the tears were all for her?

_Ch. _ Even so.

_Try. _ Is this recent? or how long has it been going on?

_Ch. _ Oh, it is nothing new. I saw her first at the Dionysia; that
makes seven months.

_Try. _ Had you a full view of her, or did you just see her face and as
much as a woman of forty-five likes to show?

_Ch. _ Oh, come! I have her word for it she will be two-and-twenty next
birthday.

_Try. _ Well, which are you going to trust--her word, or your own eyes?
Just take a careful look at her temples some day; that is the only
place where her own hair shows; all the rest is a thick wig; but at the
temples, when the dye fades a little, you can easily detect the grey.
But that is nothing; insist on seeing more than her face.

_Ch. _ Oh, but I am not favoured so far as that.

_Try. _ No, I should think not. She knows what the effect would be; why,
she is all over--oh, talk of leopard-skins! And it was she made you cry
like that, was it? I dare say, now, she was very cruel and scornful?

_Ch. _ Yes, she was, dear; and such a lot of money as she has from me!
Just now she wants a thousand drachmas; well, I am dependent on my
father, and he is very close, and I could not very well get it; so she
is at home to Moschion, and will not see me. That is why you are here;
I thought it might vex her.

_Try. _ Well, I'm sure I never never would have come if I had been told
what it was for--just to vex somebody else, and that somebody old
coffin-ripe Philematium! I shall go away; for that matter the third
cock-crow is past.

_Ch. _ No, no, not so fast, Tryphaena. If it is all true--the wig, the
dye, and the leopard-skin--I shall hate the sight of her.

_Try. _ If your mother has ever seen her at the bath, ask her. As to the
age, you had better ask your grandfather about that, if he is alive.

_Ch. _ Well, as that is what she is like, come up close to me. Give me
your arms--and your lips--and let us be friends. Philematium be hanged!

H.


XII

_Joessa. Pythias. Lysias_

_Jo. _ Cross boy! But I deserve it all! I ought to have treated you as
any other girl would do,--bothered you for money, and been engaged
when you called, and made you cheat your father or rob your mother
to get presents for me; instead of which, I have always let you in
from the very first time, and it has never cost you a penny, Lysias.
Think of all the lovers I have sent away: Ethocles, now a Chairman of
Committees, and Pasion the ship-owner, and young Melissus, who had just
come into all his father's money. I would not have a word to say to
one of them; I kept myself for you, hard-hearted Phaon that you are!
I was fool enough to believe all your vows, and have been living like
a Penelope for your sake; mother is furious about it, and is always
talking at me to her friends. And now that you feel sure of me, and
know how I dote on you, what is the consequence? You flirt with Lycaena
under my very eyes, just to vex me; you sit next to _me_ at dinner, and
pay compliments to Magidium, a mere music-girl, and hurt my feelings,
and make me cry. And that wine-party the other day, with Thraso and
Diphilus, when Cymbalium the flute-girl was there, and Pyrallis: you
know how I hate that girl: as for Cymbalium, whom you kissed no less
than five times, I didn't mind so much about that,--it must have been
sufficient punishment in itself:--but the way in which you were always
making signs to Pyrallis to notice your cup, and whispering to the
boy, when you gave it back to him, that he was not to fill it for any
one but Pyrallis! and that piece of apple that you bit off and shot
across right into her lap, when you saw that Diphilus was occupied with
Thraso,--you never even tried to conceal it from me! and she kissed
it, and hid it away beneath her girdle. What is the meaning of it all?
What have I ever done to you? Did I ever displease you? ever look at
any other man? Do I not live for you alone? A brave thing, is it not,
Lysias, to vex a poor weak woman who loves you to distraction! There is
a Nemesis who watches such deeds. You will be sorry some day, perhaps,
when you hear of my hanging myself, or jumping head first into a well;
for die I will, one way or another, rather than live to be an eyesore
to you. There will be an achievement for you to boast of! You need not
look at me like that, nor gnash your teeth: if you have anything to
say against me, here is Pythias; let her judge between us. Oh, you are
going away without a word? --You see what I have to put up with, Pythias!

_Py. _ Monster! He cares nothing for her tears. He must be made of stone
instead of flesh and blood. But the truth is, my dear, you have spoilt
him, by letting him see how fond you are of him. It is a great mistake
to make so much of them; they get uppish. Don't cry, dear: take my
advice, and shut him out once or twice; it will be his turn to dote on
_you_ then.

_Jo. _ Shut him out? Don't breathe a word of such a thing! I only wish
he would wait till I turned him out!

_Py. _ Why, here he is back again.

_Jo. _ Pythias! What _have_ you done? If he should have overheard that
about shutting him out!

_Ly. _ I am coming back on your account, Pythias, not on hers; I will
never look at her again, after what she has done: but I don't want
_you_ to think badly of me; it shall not be said that Lysias was
hard-hearted.

_Py. _ Exactly what I _was_ saying.

_Ly. _ But what would you have me do? This girl, who is so tearful now,
has been disloyal to me, and received another lover; I actually found
them together!

_Py. _ Well, after all----. But when did you make this discovery?

_Ly. _ It must have been something like five days ago; yes, it was,
because it was on the second, and to-day is the seventh. My father had
found out about this precious Joessa, and how long it had been going
on, and he locked me in, and gave the porter orders not to open to me.
Well, I wasn't going to be kept away from her, so I told Dromo to slip
along the courtyard to the lowest part of the wall, and then let me
mount on his back; I knew I could easily get over that way. To make
a long story short, I got out, and came here. It was midnight, and I
found the door carefully barred. Instead of knocking, I quietly lifted
the door off its hinges (it was not the first time I had done so) and
passed noiselessly in. Every one was asleep. I groped my way along the
wall, and stopped at the bedside.

_Jo. _ Good Heavens! What is coming? I am in torment!

_Ly. _ I perceived from the breathing that there was more than one
person there, and thought at first that Lyde must be sleeping with
her. Pythias, I was mistaken! My hands passed over a smooth, beardless
_man's_ face; the fellow was close-cropped, and reeked of scent like
any woman. I had not brought my sword with me, or you may be sure I
should have known what to do with it. --What are you both laughing at?
Is it so amusing, Pythias?

_Jo. _ Oh, Lysias! is that all? Why, it was Pythias who was sleeping
with me!

_Py. _ Joessa, don't tell him!

_Jo. _ Why not? Lysias, dear, it _was_ Pythias; I had asked her to come
and sleep with me; I was so lonely without you.

_Ly. _ Pythias? Then her hair has grown pretty fast in five days.

_Jo. _ She has been ill, and her hair was falling off, and she had to
have it cropped. And now she has got false hair. Pythias, show him that
it is so. Behold your rival, Lysias! this is the young gentleman of
whom you were jealous.

_Ly. _ And what lover would not have been jealous? I had the evidence of
my hands, remember.

_Jo. _ Well, you know better now. Suppose I were to return you evil for
evil? What should you say to that? It is my turn to be angry with you
now.

_Ly. _ No, you mustn't be angry. We will have some wine, and Pythias
must join us; the truce cannot be ratified without her.

_Jo. _ Of course not. A pretty scrape you have led me into, Pythias, you
nice young man!

_Py. _ The nice young man has led you out of it again too, so you must
forgive him. I say, Lysias, you need not tell any one--about my hair,
you know.

F.


XIII

_Leontichus. Chenidas. Hymnis_

_Le. _ And then that battle with the Galatians; tell her about that,
Chenidas--how I rode out in front on the grey, and the Galatians (brave
fellows, those Galatians, too)--but they ran away directly they saw me;
not a man stood his ground. That time, you know, I used my lance for a
javelin, and sent it through their captain and his horse as well; and
then, as some of them were left--the phalanx was broken up, you see,
but a certain number had rallied--well, I pulled out my trusty blade,
rode at them as hard as I could go, knocked over half a dozen of the
front rank with the mere rush of my horse, brought down my sword on
one of the officers, and clove his head in two halves, helmet and all.
The rest of you came up shortly, you remember, when they were already
running.

_Che. _ Oh, but that duel of yours with the satrap in Paphlagonia! that
was a fine display, too.

_Le. _ Well remembered; yes, that was not so bad, either. A great big
fellow that satrap was, supposed to be a champion fighter too--thought
nothing of Greek science. Out he came, and challenged all comers
to single combat. There was consternation among our officers, from
the lowest to the general himself--though he was a pretty good man.
Aristaechmus the Aetolian he was--very strong on the javelin; I was
only a colonel then. However, I was not afraid. I shook off the friends
who clung to me--they were anxious about me when they saw the barbarian
resplendent in his gilded armour, towering high with his terrible plume
and brandishing his lance--

_Che. _ Yes, _I_ was afraid that time; you remember how I clung to you
and besought you not to sacrifice yourself; life would not have been
worth living, if you had fallen.

_Le.
_ I ventured it, though. Out I went, as well armed as the
Paphlagonian, all gold like him. What a shout there was on both sides!
the barbarians recognized me too; they knew my buckler and medals and
plume. Who was it they all compared me to, Chenidas?

_Che. _ Why, who should it be? Achilles, of course; the son of Peleus
and Thetis, of course. Your helmet was so magnificent, your purple so
rich, your buckler so dazzling.

_Le. _ We met. The barbarian drew first blood--just a scratch with his
lance a little above the knee; but my great spear drove through his
shield and right into the breast-bone Then I ran up, just sliced his
head off with my sword, and came back carrying his arms, the head
spiked on my spear dripping gore upon me.

_Hym. _ How horrid, Leontichus! what disgusting frightful tales you
tell about yourself! What girl would look at a man who likes such
nastiness--let alone drink or sleep with him? I am going away.

_Le. _ Pooh! I double your pay.

_Hym. _ No, nothing shall induce me to sleep with a murderer.

_Le. _ Don't be afraid, my dear. All that was in Paphlagonia. I am a man
of peace now.

_Hym. _ No, you are unclean; the blood of the barbarian's head on the
spear has dripped over you! I embrace and kiss a man like that? the
Graces forbid! he is no better than the executioner.

_Le. _ I am certain you would be in love with me if you had seen me in
my armour.

_Hym. _ I tell you it makes me sick and frightened even to hear of such
things; I see the shades and ghosts of the slain; that poor officer
with his head cloven! what would it be if I saw the thing done, and the
blood, and the bodies lying there? I am sure I should die; I never saw
a chicken killed, even.

_Le. _ Such a coward, girl? so poor of heart? I thought you would like
to hear it.

_Hym. _ Well, try the Lemnian women, or the daughters of Danaus, if you
want to please with that sort of tale. I shall run home to my mother,
while there is some daylight left. Come along, Grammis. Good-bye,
mightiest of colonels, and murderer of however many it is!

_Le. _ Stay, girl, stay. --Why, she is gone!

_Che. _ Well, Leontichus, you frightened the simple little thing with
your nodding plumes and your incredible exploits. I saw her getting
pale as far back as the officer story; her face was all puckered up and
quivering when you split his head.

_Le. _ I thought it would make me more attractive. Well, but it was your
fault too; you started the duel.

_Che. _ Well, I had to chime in when I saw what you were bragging
for. But you laid it on so thick. Pass the cutting off the wretched
Paphlagonian's head, what did you want to spike it on a spear for, and
let the blood run down on you?

_Le. _ That was a bit too strong, I admit; the rest was rather well put
together. Well, go and persuade her to come back.

_Che. _ Shall I tell her you lied to make her think you a fine fellow?

_Le. _ Oh, plague upon it!

_Che. _ It's the only way. Choose--a mighty champion, and loathed, or a
confessed liar, and--Hymnis?

_Le. _ Bad is the best; but I say Hymnis. Go to her, then, Chenidas, and
say I lied--in parts.

H.


XIV

_Dorion. Myrtale_

_Do. _ So, Myrtale! You ruin me first, and then close your doors on me!
It was another tale when I brought you all those presents: I was your
love, then; your lord, your life. But you have squeezed me dry now, and
have got hold of that Bithynian merchant; so I am left to whimper on
the wrong side of the door, while he, the favoured lover, enjoys your
embraces, and is to become a father soon, so you tell him.

_Myr. _ Come, Dorion, that is too much! Ruined you, indeed! A lot you
ever gave me! Let us go through the list of your presents, from the
very beginning.

_Do. _ Very well; let us. First, a pair of shoes from Sicyon, two
drachmae. Remember two drachmae.

_Myr. _ Ah, but you were here for two nights.

_Do. _ A box of Phoenician ointment, when I came back from Syria; the
box of alabaster. The same price, as I'm a seaman!

_Myr. _ Well, and when you sailed again, didn't I give you that
waistcoat, that you might have something to wear when you were rowing?
It was Epiurus the boatswain's, that waistcoat; he left it here one
night by mistake.

_Do. _ Epiurus recognized it, and took it away from me in Samos, only
the other day; and a rare tussle we had before he got it. Then there
were those onions I brought you from Cyprus, and five haddocks and
four perch, the time we came back from the Bosphorus. Oh, and a whole
basket of ship's bread--eight loaves of it; and a jar of figs from
Caria. Another time it was a pair of slippers from Patara, gilded ones,
you ungrateful girl! Ah, and I was forgetting that great cheese from
Gythium.

_Myr. _ Say five drachmae the lot.

_Do. _ It was all that my pay would run to, Myrtale; I was but a common
seaman in those days. I have risen to be mate now, my haughty miss. And
didn't I put down a solid drachma for you at the feet of Aphrodite's
statue, when it was her feast the other day? Then I gave your mother
two drachmae to buy shoes with; and Lyde there,--many is the copper I
have slipped into her hand, by twos and threes. Put all that together,
and it makes a seaman's fortune.

_Myr. _ Onions and haddocks.

_Do. _ Yes; 'twas all I had; if I were rich, I should not be a sailor. I
have never brought my own mother so much as a head of garlic. I should
like to know what sort of presents the Bithynian makes you?

_Myr. _ Look at this dress: he bought it me; and this necklace, the
thick one.

_Do. _ Pooh, you have had that for years.

_Myr. _ No, the one you knew was much lighter, and it had no emeralds.
My earrings were a present of his too, and so was that rug; and he gave
me two minae the other day, besides paying our rent. Rather different
from Patara slippers, and Gythium cheeses and stuff!

_Do. _ And how do you like him for a lover? you say nothing about that.
He is fifty years old if he is a day; his hair is all gone in front,
and he has the complexion of a lobster. Did you ever notice his teeth?
And so accomplished too! it is a treat to hear him when he sings and
tries to make himself agreeable; what is it they tell me about an ass
that would learn the lyre? Well, I wish you joy of him; you deserve
no better luck; and may the child be like his father! As for me, I'll
find some Delphis or Cymbalium that's more in my line; your neighbour,
perhaps, the flute-girl; anyhow, I shall get some one. We can't all
afford necklaces and rugs and two minae presents.

_Myr. _ How I envy the lucky girl who gets you, Dorion! What onions she
will have from Cyprus! what cheeses next time you come from Gythium!

F.


XV

_Cochlis. Parthenis_

_Co. _ Crying, Parthenis! what is it? how do your pipes come to be
broken?

_Par. _ Oh! oh! I have been beaten by Crocale's lover--that tall
Aetolian soldier; he found me playing at Crocale's, hired by his rival
Gorgus. He broke in while they were at dinner, smashed my pipes, upset
the table, and emptied out the wine-bowl. Gorgus (the country fellow,
you know) he pulled out of the dining-room by the hair of his head,
and the two of them, Dinomachus (I think they call him) and a fellow
soldier, stood over thumping him. Oh, Cochlis, I doubt whether he will
live; there was a great rush of blood from his nostrils, and his face
is all swollen and livid.

_Co. _ Is the man mad? or was it just a drunken freak?

_Par. _ All jealousy, my dear--love run wild. Crocale had asked two
talents, I believe, if Dinomachus wanted her all to himself. He
refused; so she shut the door in his face, I was told, and would
not let him in at all. Instead of him she took Gorgus of Oenoë, a
well-to-do farmer and a nice man; they were drinking together, and
she had got me in to play the pipes. Well, the wine was going, I was
striking up one of those Lydian tunes, the farmer standing up to dance,
Crocale clapping, and all as merry as could be. Suddenly there was
a noise and a shout, crash went the front door, and a moment after
in burst eight great strong men, that brute among them. Everything
was upside down directly, Gorgus on the ground, as I told you, being
thumped and kicked. Crocale got away somehow and took refuge with
Thespias next door. Dinomachus boxed my ears, and 'Go to blazes! ' he
said, throwing me the broken pipes. I am running to tell master about
it now. And the farmer is going to find some of his friends in town and
get the brute summonsed in the police-court.

_Co. _ Yes, bruises and the courts--that is all we get out of the
military. They tell you they are generals and colonels, and then when
it comes to paying, 'Oh, wait for settling day,' they say; 'then I
shall get my pay, and put everything right. ' I wish they were all
dead, they and their bragging. But I never have anything to do with
them; it is the best way. Give me a fisherman or a sailor or farmer no
better than myself, with few compliments and plenty of money. These
plume-tossing word-warriors! they are nothing but noise, Parthenis.

H.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Demeter and Persephone.




THE DEATH OF PEREGRINE


LUCIAN to CRONIUS. Greeting.

Poor dear Peregrine--or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,--has
quite come up to his namesake in Homer. We have seen him under many
shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory's sake;
and now--'tis his last appearance--we see him in the shape of fire.
So vast was his ambition. Yes, Cronius; all that is left of the best
of men is a handful of ashes. It's just like Empedocles; only with a
difference. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater
unobserved: not so our high-souled friend. He bides his time till all
Greece is mustered in full force--constructs a pyre of the largest
dimensions--and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having
briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the subject of his
daring enterprise! I fancy I see you chuckling away at the old dotard;
or rather I hear you blurting out the inevitable comments--'Mere
imbecility'--'Mere clap-trap'-'Mere . . . ' everything else that we
are accustomed to attribute to these gentry. But then you are far
enough off to be comparatively safe: now _I_ made my remarks before
a vast audience, in the very moment of cremation (and before it for
that matter), exciting thereby the indignation of all the old fool's
admirers, though there were a few who joined in the laugh against him.
I can tell you, I was within an ace of being torn limb from limb by
the Cynics, like Actaeon among the dogs, or his cousin Pentheus among
the Maenads. --But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. As to
our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime
utterances that marked his earthly course, out-voicing Sophocles and
Aeschylus.

Well, the first thing I did when I got to Elis was to take a turn in
the gymnasium, listening the while to the discordant yells of some
Cynic or other;--the usual platitudes, you know;--ringing commendations
of Virtue--indiscriminate slaughter of characters--finally, a
peroration on the subject of Proteus. I must try and give you the exact
words, as far as I can remember them; you will recognize the true Cynic
yell, I'll be bound; you have heard it before.

'Proteus,' he cried, 'Proteus vain-glorious? Who dares name the word?
Earth! Sun! Seas!