They
say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus.
say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus.
Lucian
Call in the painters, perhaps,
selecting those who were noted for their skill in mixing and laying
on their colours? Be it so: we will have Polygnotus, Euphranor of
course, Apelles and Aetion; they can divide the work between them.
Euphranor shall colour the hair like his _Hera's_; Polygnotus the
comely brow and faintly blushing cheek, after his _Cassandra_ in
the Assembly-room at Delphi. Polygnotus shall also paint her
robe,--of the finest texture, part duly gathered in, but most of it
floating in the breeze. For the flesh-tints, which must be neither
too pale nor too high-coloured, Apelles shall copy his own
_Campaspe_. And lastly, Aetion shall give her _Roxana's_ lips. Nay,
we can do better: have we not Homer, best of painters, though a
Euphranor and an Apelles be present? Let him colour all like the
limbs of Menelaus, which he says were 'ivory tinged with red. ' He
too shall paint her calm 'ox- eyes,' and the Theban poet shall help
him to give them their 'violet' hue. Homer shall add her smile, her
white arms, her rosy finger-tips, and so complete the resemblance
to golden Aphrodite, to whom he has compared Brises' daughter with
far less reason. So far we may trust our sculptors and painters and
poets: but for her crowning glory, for the grace--nay, the choir of
Graces and Loves that encircle her--who shall portray them?
_Poly_. This was no earthly vision, Lycinus; surely she must
have dropped from the clouds. --And what was she doing?
_Ly_. In her hands was an open scroll; half read (so I surmised)
and half to be read. As she passed, she was making some remark to
one of her company; what it was I did not catch. But when she
smiled, ah! then, Polystratus, I beheld teeth whose whiteness,
whose unbroken regularity, who shall describe? Imagine a lovely
necklace of gleaming pearls, all of a size; and imagine those
dazzling rows set off by ruby lips. In that glimpse, I realized
what Homer meant by his 'carven ivory. ' Other women's teeth differ
in size; or they project; or there are gaps: here, all was equality
and evenness; pearl joined to pearl in unbroken line. Oh, 'twas a
wondrous sight, of beauty more than human.
_Poly_. Stay. I know now whom you mean, as well from your
description as from her nationality. You said that there were
eunuchs in her train?
_Ly_. Yes; and soldiers too.
_Poly_. My simple friend, the lady you have been describing is
a celebrity, and possesses the affections of an Emperor.
_Ly_. And her name?
_Poly_. Adds one more to the list of her charms; for it is the
same as that of Abradatas's wife. [Footnote: See _Panthea_ in
Notes. ] You know Xenophon's enthusiastic account of that beautiful
and virtuous woman? --you have read it a dozen times.
_Ly_. Yes; and every time I read it, it is as if she stood
before me. I almost hear her uttering the words the historian has
put into her mouth, and see her arming her husband and sending him
forth to battle.
_Poly_. Ah, my dear Lycinus, _this_ lady has passed you
but once, like a lightning flash; and your praises, I perceive, are
all for those external charms that strike the eye. You are yet a
stranger to her nobility of soul; you know not that higher, more
god-like beauty. _I_ am her fellow-countryman, I know her, and
have conversed with her many times. You are aware that gentleness,
humanity, magnanimity, modesty, culture, are things that I prize
more than beauty-and rightly; to do otherwise would be as absurd as
to value raiment above the body. Where physical perfection goes
hand-in-hand with spiritual excellence, there alone (as I maintain)
is true beauty. I could show you many a woman whose outward
loveliness is marred by what is within; who has but to open her
lips, and beauty stands confessed a faded, withered thing, the
mean, unlovely handmaid of that odious mistress, her soul. Such
women are like Egyptian temples: the shrine is fair and stately,
wrought of costly marble, decked out with gilding and painting: but
seek the God within, and you find an ape--an ibis--a goat--a cat.
Of how many women is the same thing true! Beauty unadorned is not
enough: and her true adornments are not purple and jewels, but
those others that I have mentioned, modesty, courtesy, humanity,
virtue and all that waits on virtue.
_Ly_. Why then, Polystratus, you shall give me story for story,
good measure, shaken together, out of your abundance: paint me the
portrait of her soul, that I may be no more her half-admirer.
_Poly_. This will be no light task, my friend. It is one thing
to commend what all the world can see, and quite another to reveal
what is hidden. I too shall want help with my portrait. Nor will
sculptors and painters suffice me: I must have philosophers; it is
by their canons that I must adjust the proportions of the figure,
if I am to attain to the perfection of ancient models.
To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said,
with far more truth than of aged Nestor's, that
honey from those lips distilled.
The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as
from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice
breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still
vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and
Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy,
to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans
and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers;
Philomela's self, 'full-throated songstress' though she be, is all
unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus and Amphion, whose spell
drew even lifeless things to hear them, would have dropped their
lyres and stood listening in silence to that voice. What should
Thracian Orpheus, what should Amphion, whose days upon Cithaeron
were divided betwixt his lyre and his herd,--what should they know
of true concord, of accurate rhythm, of accentuation and time, of
the harmonious adaptation of lyre and voice, of easy and graceful
execution? Yes; once hear her sing, Lycinus, and you will know
something of Sirens as well as of Gorgons: you have experienced
petrifaction; you will next learn what it is to stand entranced,
forgetting country and kindred. Wax will not avail you: her song
will penetrate through all; for therein is every grace that
Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope herself, could inspire. In a word,
imagine that you hear such notes as should issue from those lips,
those teeth that you have seen. Her perfect intonation, her pure
Ionic accent, her ready Attic eloquence, need not surprise you;
these are her birthright; for is not Smyrna Athens' daughter? And
what more natural than that she should love poetry, and make it her
chief study? Homer is her fellow citizen. --There you have my first
portrait; the portrait of a sweet-voiced songstress, though it
fall far short of its original. And now for others. For I do not
propose to make one of many, as you did. I aim higher: the complex
picture of so many beauties wrought into one, however artful be the
composition, cannot escape inconsistency: with me, each separate
virtue of her soul shall sit for its own portrait.
_Ly_. What a banquet awaits me! Here, assuredly, is good
measure. Mete it out; I ask for nothing better.
_Poly_. I proceed then to the delineation of Culture, the
confessed mistress of all mental excellences, particularly of all
acquired ones: I must render her features in all their manifold
variety; not even here shall my portraiture be inferior to your
own. I paint her, then, with every grace that Helicon can give.
Each of the Muses has but her single accomplishment, be it tragedy
or history or hymn: all these Culture shall have, and with them the
gifts of Hermes and of Apollo. The poet's graceful numbers, the
orator's persuasive power, the historian's learning, the sage's
counsel, all these shall be her adornments; the colours shall be
imperishable, and laid on with no niggardly brush. It is not my
fault, if I am unable to point to any classical model for the
portrait: the records of antiquity afford no precedent for a
culture so highly developed. --May I hang this beside the other? I
think it is a passable likeness.
_Ly_. Passable! My dear Polystratus, it is sublime;
exquisitely finished in every line.
_Poly_. Next I have to depict Wisdom; and here I shall have
occasion for many models, most of them ancient; one comes, like the
lady herself, from Ionia. The artists shall be Aeschines and
Socrates his master, most realistic of painters, for their heart
was in their work. We could choose no better model of wisdom than
Milesian Aspasia, the admired of the admirable 'Olympian' [Footnote:
See _Pericles_ in Notes. ]; her political knowledge and insight,
her shrewdness and penetration, shall all be transferred to our
canvas in their perfect measure. Aspasia, however, is only
preserved to us in miniature: _our_ proportions must be those
of a colossus.
_Ly_. Explain.
_Poly_. The portraits will be alike, but not on the same
scale. There is a difference between the little republic of ancient
Athens, and the Roman Empire of to-day; and there will be the same
difference in _scale_ (however close the resemblance in other
respects) between our huge canvas and that miniature. A second and
a third model may be found in Theano, and in the poetess of Lesbos;
nay, we may add Diotima too. Theano shall give grandeur to the
picture, Sappho elegance; and Diotima shall be represented as well
by her wisdom and sagacity, as by the qualities for which Socrates
commended her. The portrait is complete. Let it be hung.
_Ly_. 'Tis a fine piece of work. Proceed.
_Poly_. Courtesy, benevolence: that is now my subject. I have
to show forth her gentle disposition, her graciousness to
suppliants. She shall appear in the likeness of Theano--Antenor's
Theano this time--, of Arete and her daughter Nausicaa, and of
every other who in her high station has borne herself with
constancy. Next comes constancy of another kind,--constancy in
love; its original, the daughter of Icarius, 'constant' and 'wise,'
as Homer draws her; am I doing more than justice to his Penelope?
And there is another: our lady's namesake, Abradatas's wife; of her
we have already spoken.
_Ly_. Once more, noble work, Polystratus. And now your task
must be drawing to a close: here is a whole soul depicted; its
every virtue praised.
_Poly_. Not yet: the highest praise remains. Born to magnificence,
she clothes not herself in the pride of wealth; listens not to
Fortune's flattering tale, who tells her she is more than human;
but walks upon the common ground, far removed from all thought of
arrogance and ostentation. Every man is her equal; her greeting,
her smile are for all who approach her; and how acceptable is the
kindness of a superior, when it is free from every touch of
condescension! When the power of the great turns not to insolence
but to beneficence, we feel that Fortune has bestowed her gifts
aright. Here alone Envy has no place. For how should one man grudge
another his prosperity when he sees him using it with moderation,
not, like the Homeric Ate, an oppressor of the weak, trampling on
men's necks? It is otherwise with those meaner souls--victims of
their own ignoble vanity--, who, when Fortune has raised them
suddenly beyond their hopes into her winged aerial car, know no
rest, can never look behind them, but must ever press upwards. To
such the end soon comes: Icarus-like, with melted wax and moulting
feathers, they fall headlong into the billows, a derision to
mankind. The Daedaluses use their waxen wings with moderation: they
are but men; they husband their strength accordingly, and are
content to fly a little higher than the waves,--so little that the
sun never finds them dry; and that prudence is their salvation.
Therein lies this lady's highest praise. She has her reward: all
men pray that her wings may never droop, and that blessings may
increase upon her.
_Ly_. And may the prayer be granted! She deserves every
blessing: she is not outwardly fair alone, like Helen, but has a
soul within more fair, more lovely than her body. It is a fitting
crown to the happiness of our benevolent and gracious Emperor, that
in his day such a woman should be born; should be his, and her
affections his. It is blessedness indeed, to possess one of whom we
may say with Homer that she contends with golden Aphrodite in
beauty, and in works is the equal of Athene. Who of womankind shall
be compared to her
In comeliness, in wit, in goodly works?
_Poly_. Who indeed? --Lycinus, I have a proposal to make. Let
us combine our portraits, yours of the body and mine of the soul,
and throw them into a literary form, for the enjoyment of our
generation and of all posterity. Such a work will be more enduring
than those of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus; it will be far
removed from creations of wood and wax and colour, being inspired
by the Muses, in whom alone is that true portraiture that shows
forth in one likeness a lovely body and a virtuous soul.
DEFENCE OF THE 'PORTRAIT-STUDY'
_Polystratus_. _Lycinus_
_Poly_. Well, here is the lady's comment. _Your pages are most kind
and complimentary, I am sure, Lycinus. No one would have so
over-praised me who had not felt kindly towards me. But if you
would know my real feeling, here it is. I never do much like the
complaisant; they always strike me as insincere and wanting in
frankness. But when it comes to a set panegyric, in which my much
magnified virtues are painted in glaring colours, I blush and would
fain stop my ears, and feel that I am rather being made fun of than
commended.
Praise is tolerable up to the point at which the object of it can
still believe in the existence of the qualities attributed to him;
pass that point, and he is revolted and finds the flatterer out. Of
course I know there are plenty of people who are glad enough to
have non-existent qualities added to their praises; who do not mind
being called young and lusty in their decline, or Nireuses and
Phaons though they are hideous; who, Pelias-like, expect praise to
metamorphose or rejuvenate them.
But they are mistaken. Praise would indeed be a most precious
commodity if there were any way of converting its extravagances
into solid fact. But there being none, they can only be compared to
an ugly man on whom one should clap a beautiful mask, and who
should then be proud of those looks that any one could take from
him and break to pieces; revealed in his true likeness, he would be
only the more ridiculous for the contrast between casket and
treasure. Or, if you will, imagine a little man on stilts measuring
heights with people who have eighteen inches the better of him in
stocking feet_.
And then she told this story. There was a noble lady, fair and
comely in all respects except that she was short and ill-proportioned.
A poet wrote an ode in her honour, and included among her beauties
that of tallness; her slender height was illustrated from the poplar.
She was in ecstasies, as though the verses were making her grow, and
kept waving her hand. Which the poet seeing, and realizing her
appetite for praise, recited the lines again and again, till at last
one of the company whispered in his ear, 'Stop, my good man; you will
be making her get up. '
She added a similar but still more absurd anecdote of Stratonice
the wife of Seleucus, who offered a talent to the poet who should
best celebrate her hair. As a matter of fact she was bald, with not
a hair to call her own. But what matter what her head was like, or
that every one knew how a long illness had treated her? she
listened to these abandoned poets telling of hyacinthine locks,
plaiting thick tresses, and making imaginary curls as crisp as
parsley.
All such surrenders to flattery were laughed to scorn, with the
addition that many people were just as fond of being flattered and
fooled by portrait-painters as these by verbal artists. _What
these people look for in a painter_ (she said) _is readiness
to improve nature: Some of them insist upon the artist's taking a
little off their noses, deepening the shade of their eyes, or
otherwise idealizing them to order; it quite escapes them that the
garlands they afterwards put on the picture are offered to another
person who bears no relation to themselves_.
And so she went on, finding much in your composition to approve,
but displeased in particular with your likening her to Hera and
Aphrodite. _Such comparisons are far too high for me_, she
said, _or indeed for any of womankind. Why, I would not have had
you put me on a level with women of the Heroic Age, with a
Penelope, an Arete, a Theano; how much less with the chief of the
Goddesses. Where the Gods are concerned_ (she continued; and
mark her here), _I am very apprehensive and timid. I fear that to
accept a panegyric like this would be to make a Cassiopeia of
myself; though indeed_ she _only challenged the Nereids, and
stopped short of Hera and Aphrodite_.
So, Lycinus, she insisted that you must recast all this; otherwise
she must call the Goddesses to witness that you had written against
her wishes, and leave you to the knowledge that the piece would be
an annoyance to her, if it circulated in its present shape, so
lacking in reverence and piety. The outrage on reverence would be
put down to her, if she allowed herself to be likened to her of
Cnidus and her of the Garden. She would have you bear in mind the
close of your discourse, where you spoke of the unassuming modesty
that attempted no superhuman flights, but kept near the earth. It
was inconsistent with that to take the same woman up to heaven and
compare her with Goddesses.
She would like to be allowed as much sense as Alexander; he, when
his architect proposed to transform Mount Athos into a vast image
of the King with a pair of cities in his hands, shrank from the
grandiose proposal; such presumption was beyond him; such patent
megalomania must be suppressed; leave Athos alone, he said, and do
not degrade a mighty mountain to the similitude of a poor human
body. This only showed the greatness of Alexander, and itself
constituted in the eyes of all future generations a monument higher
than any Athos; to be able to scorn so extraordinary an honour was
itself magnanimity.
So she commends your work of art, and your selective method, but
cannot recognize the likeness. She does not come up to the
description, nor near it, for indeed no woman could. Accordingly
she sends you back your laudation, and pays homage to the originals
from which you drew it. Confine your praises within the limits of
humanity; if the shoe is too big, it may chance to trip her up.
Then there was another point which I was to impress upon you.
_I often hear_, she said,--_but whether it is true, you men
know better than I--that at Olympia the victors are not allowed to
have their statues set up larger than life; the Stewards see to it
that no one transgresses this rule, examining the statues even more
scrupulously than they did the competitor's qualification. Take
care that we do not get convicted of false proportions, and find
our statue thrown down by the Stewards_.
And now I have given you her message. It is for you, Lycinus, to
overhaul your work, and by removing these blemishes avoid the
offence. They shocked and made her nervous as I read; she kept on
addressing the Goddesses in propitiatory words; and such feelings
may surely be permitted to her sex. For that matter, to be quite
frank, I shared them to some extent. At the first hearing I found
no offence; but as soon as she put her finger on the fault, I began
to agree. You know what happens with visible objects; if we look at
them at close quarters, just under our eyes, I mean, we distinguish
nothing clearly; but stepping back to the right distance, we get a
clear conception of what is right and what is wrong about them.
That was my experience here.
After all, to compare a mortal to Hera and Aphrodite is cheapening
the Goddesses, and nothing else. In such comparisons the small is
not so much magnified as the great is diminished and reduced. If a
giant and a dwarf were walking together, and their heights had to
be equalized, no efforts of the dwarf could effect it, however much
he stood on tiptoe; the giant must stoop and make himself out
shorter than he is. So in this sort of portraiture: the human is
not so much exalted by the similitude as the divine is belittled
and pulled down. If indeed a lack of earthly beauties forced the
artist upon scaling Heaven, he might perhaps be acquitted of
blasphemy; but your enterprise was so needless; why Aphrodite and
Hera, when you have all mortal beauty to choose from?
Prune and chasten, then, Lycinus. All this is not quite like you,
who never used to be over-ready with your commendation; you seem to
have gone now to the opposite extreme of prodigality, and developed
from a niggard into a spendthrift of praise. Do not be ashamed to
make alterations in what you have already published, either.
They
say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus. He stood
behind the doors when he had opened them for the first time to let
the work be seen, and listened to the comments favourable or the
reverse. One found the nose too broad, another the face too long,
and so on. When the company was gone, he shut himself up again to
correct and adapt his statue to the prevailing taste. Advice so
many-headed was not to be despised; the many must after all see
further than the one, though that one be Phidias. There is the
counsel of a friend and well-wisher to back up the lady's message.
_Ly_. Why, Polystratus, I never knew what an orator you were.
After that eloquent close-packed indictment of my booklet, I almost
despair of the defence. You and she were not quite judicial,
though; you less than she, in condemning the accused when its
counsel was not in court. It is always easy to win a walk-over,
you know; so no wonder we were convicted, not being allowed to
speak or given the ear of the court. But, still more monstrous, you
were accusers and jury at once. Well, what am I to do? accept the
verdict and hold my tongue? pen a palinode like Stesichorus? or
will you grant an appeal?
_Poly_. Surely, if you have anything to say for yourself. For
you will be heard not by opponents, as you say, but by friends.
Indeed, my place is with you in the dock.
_Ly_. How I wish I could, have spoken in her own presence!
that would have been far better; but I must do it by proxy.
However, if you will report me to her as well as you did her to me,
I will adventure.
_Poly_. Trust me to do justice to the defence; but put it
shortly, in mercy to my memory.
_Ly_. So severe an indictment should by rights be met at
length; but for your sake I will cut it short. Put these
considerations before her from me, then.
_Poly_. No, not that way, please. Make your speech, just as
though she were listening, and I will reproduce you to her.
_Ly_. Very well, then. She is here; she has just delivered the
oration which you have described to me; it is now counsel's turn.
And yet--I must confide my feelings to you--you have made my
undertaking somehow more formidable; you see the beads gather on my
brow; my courage goes; I seem to see her there; my situation
bewilders me. Yet begin I will; how can I draw back when she is
there?
_Poly_. Ah, but her face promises a kindly hearing; see how
bright and gracious. Pluck up heart, man, and begin.
_Ly_. Most noble lady, in what you term the great and excessive
praise that I bestowed upon you, I find no such high testimony to
your merits as that which you have borne yourself by your surprise
at the attribution of divinity. That one thing surpasses all that I
have said of you, and my only excuse for not having added this
trait to my portrait is that I was not aware of it; if I had been,
no other should have had precedence of it. In this light I find
myself, far from exaggerating, to have fallen much short of the
truth. Consider the magnitude of this omission, the convincing
demonstration of a sterling character and a right disposition which
I lost; for those will be the best in human relations who are most
earnest in their dealings with the divine. Why, were it decided
that I must correct my words and retouch my statue, I should do it
not by presuming to take away from it, but by adding this as its
crowning grace. But from another point of view I have a great debt
of gratitude to acknowledge. I commend your natural modesty, and
your freedom from that vanity and pride which so exalted a position
as yours might excuse. The best witness to my correctness is just
the exception that you have taken to my words. That instead of
receiving the praise I offered as your right you should be
disturbed at it and call it excessive, is the proof of your
unassuming modesty. Nevertheless, the more you reveal that this is
your view of praise, the stronger proof you give of your own
worthiness to be praised. You are an exact illustration of what
Diogenes said when some one asked him how he might become famous:--
'by despising fame. ' So if I were asked who most deserve praise, I
should answer, Those who refuse it.
But I am perhaps straying from the point. What I have to defend is
the having likened you, in giving your outward form, to the Cnidian
and the Garden _Aphrodite_, to _Hera_ and _Athene_; such
comparisons you find out of all proportion. I will deal directly
with them, then. It has indeed been said long ago that poets and
painters are irresponsible; that is still more true, I conceive, of
panegyrists, even humble prose ones like myself who are not run
away with by their metre. Panegyric is a chartered thing, with no
standard quantitative measure to which it must conform; its one and
only aim is to express deep admiration and set its object in the
most enviable light. However, I do not intend to take that line of
defence; you might think I did so because I had no other open.
But I have. I refer you to the proper formula of panegyric, which
requires the author to introduce illustrations, and depends mainly
on their goodness for success. Now this goodness is shown not when
the illustration is just like the thing illustrated, nor yet when
it is inferior, but when it is as high above it as may be. If in
praising a dog one should remark that it was bigger than a fox or a
cat, would you regard him as a skilful panegyrist? certainly not.
Or if he calls it the equal of a wolf, he has not made very much of
it so either. Where is the right thing to be found? why, in
likening the dog's size and spirit to the lion's. So the poet who
would praise Orion's dog called it the lion-queller. There you have
the perfect panegyric of the dog. Or take Milo of Croton, Glaucus
of Carystus, or Polydamas; to say of them by way of panegyric that
each of them was stronger than a woman would be to make oneself a
laughing-stock; one man instead of the woman would not much mend
matters. But what, pray, does a famous poet make of Glaucus? --
To match those hands not e'en the might
Of Pollux' self had dared;
Alcmena's son, that iron wight,
Had shrunk--
See what Gods he equals him to, or rather what Gods he puts him
above. And Glaucus took no exception to being praised at the
expense of his art's patron deities; nor yet did they send any
judgement on athlete or poet for irreverence; both continued to be
honoured in Greece, one for his might, and the other for this even
more than for his other odes. Do not be surprised, then, that when
I wished to conform to the canons of my art and find an
illustration, I took an exalted one, as reason was that I should.
You used the word flattery. To dislike those who practise it is
only what you should do, and I honour you for it. But I would have
you distinguish between panegyric proper and the flatterer's
exaggeration of it. The flatterer praises for selfish ends,
cares little for truth, and makes it his business to magnify
indiscriminately; most of his effects consist in lying additions of
his own; he thinks nothing of making Thersites handsomer than
Achilles, or telling Nestor he is younger than any of the host; he
will swear Croesus's son hears better than Melampus, and give
Phineus better sight than Lynceus, if he sees his way to a profit
on the lie. But the panegyrist pure and simple, instead of lying
outright, or inventing a quality that does not exist, takes the
virtues his subject really does possess, though possibly not in
large measure, and makes the most of them. The horse is really
distinguished among the animals we know for light-footed speed;
well, in praising a horse, he will hazard:
The corn-stalks brake not 'neath his airy tread.
He will not be frightened of 'whirlwind-footed steeds. ' If his
theme is a noble house, with everything handsome about it,
Zeus on Olympus dwells in such a home,
we shall be told. But your flatterer would use that line about the
swineherd's hovel, if he saw a chance of getting anything out of
the swineherd. Demetrius Poliorcetes had a flatterer called
Cynaethus who, when he was gravelled for lack of matter, found some
in a cough that troubled his patron--he cleared his throat so
musically!
There you have one criterion: flatterers do not draw the line at a
lie if it will please their patrons; panegyrists aim merely at
bringing into relief what really exists. But there is another great
difference: the flatterers exaggerate as much as ever they can; the
panegyrists in the midst of exaggeration observe the limitations of
decency. And now that you have one or two of the many tests for
flattery and panegyric proper, I hope you will not treat all praise
as suspect, but make distinctions and assign each specimen to its
true class.
By your leave I will proceed to apply the two definitions to what I
wrote; which of them fits it? If it had been an ugly woman that I
likened to the Cnidian statue, I should deserve to be thought a
toady, further gone in flattery than Cynaethus. But as it was one
for whose charms I can call all men to witness, my shot was not so
far out.
Now you will perhaps say--nay, you have said already--Praise my
beauty, if you will; but the praise should not have been of that
invidious kind which compares a woman to Goddesses. Well, I will
keep truth at arm's length no longer; I did _not_, dear lady,
compare you to Goddesses, but to the handiwork in marble and bronze
and ivory of certain good artists. There is no impiety, surely, in
illustrating mortal beauty by the work of mortal hands--unless you
take the thing that Phidias fashioned to be indeed Athene, or
Praxiteles's not much later work at Cnidus to be the heavenly
Aphrodite. But would that be quite a worthy conception of divine
beings? I take the real presentment of them to be beyond the reach
of human imitation.
But granting even that it had been the actual Goddesses to whom I
likened you, it would be no new track, of which I had been the
pioneer; it had been trodden before by many a great poet, most of
all by your fellow citizen Homer, who will kindly now come and
share my defence, on pain of sharing my sentence. I will ask him,
then--or rather you for him; for it is one of your merits to have
all his finest passages by heart--what think you, then, of his
saying about the captive Briseis that in her mourning for Patroclus
she was 'Golden Aphrodite's peer'? A little further on, Aphrodite
alone not meeting the case, it is:
So spake that weeping dame, a match for Goddesses.
When he talks like that, do you take offence and fling the book
away, or has _he_ your licence to expatiate in panegyric?
Whether he has yours or not, he has that of all these centuries,
wherein not a critic has found fault with him for it, not he
that dared to scourge his statue [Footnote: Zoilus, called
Homeromastix. ], not he whose marginal pen [Footnote: Aristarclius. ]
bastarded so many of his verses. Now, shall he have leave to match
with Golden Aphrodite a barbarian woman, and her in tears, while I,
lest I should describe the beauty that you like not to hear of, am
forbidden to compare certain images to a lady who is ever bright
and smiling--that beauty which mortals share with Gods?
When he had Agamemnon in hand, he was most chary of divine
similitudes, to be sure! what economy and moderation in his use of
them! Let us see--eyes and head from Zeus, belt from Ares, chest
from Posidon; why, he deals the man out piecemeal among the host of
Heaven. Elsewhere, Agamemnon is 'like baleful Ares'; others have
their heavenly models; Priam's son (a Phrygian, mark) is 'of form
divine,' the son of Peleus is again and again 'a match for Gods. '
But let us come back to the feminine instances You remember, of
course,
--a match
For Artemis or golden Aphrodite;
and
Like Artemis adown the mountain slope.
But he does not even limit himself to comparing the whole man to a
God; Euphorbus's mere hair is called like the Graces--when it is
dabbled with blood, too. In fact the practice is so universal that
no branch of poetry can do without its ornaments from Heaven.
Either let all these be blotted, or let me have the same licence.
Moreover, illustration is so irresponsible that Homer allows
himself to convey his compliments to Goddesses by using creatures
inferior to them. Hera is ox-eyed. Another poet colours Aphrodite's
eyes from the violet. As for fingers like the rose, it takes but
little of Homer's society to bring us acquainted with them.
Still, so far we do not get beyond mere looks; a man is only called
_like_ a God. But think of the wholesale adaptation of their
names, by Dionysiuses, Hephaestions, Zenos, Posidoniuses,
Hermaeuses. Leto, wife of Evagoras, King of Cyprus, even dispensed
with adaptation; but her divine namesake, who could have turned her
into stone like Niobe, took no offence. What need to mention that
the most religious race on earth, the Egyptian, never tires of
divine names? most of those it uses hail from Heaven.
Consequently, there is not the smallest occasion for you to be
nervous about the panegyric. If what I wrote contains anything
offensive to the deity, you are not responsible, unless you
consider we are responsible for all that goes in at our ears; no, I
shall pay the penalty--as soon as the Gods have settled with Homer
and the other poets. Ah, and they have not done so yet with the
best of all philosophers [Footnote: Lucian's 'best of all
philosophers' might be Plato, who is their spokesman in 'The
Fisher' (see Sections 14, 22), or Epicurus, in the light of two
passages in the 'Alexander' (Sections 47, 61) in which he almost
declares himself an Epicurean. The exact words are not found in
Plato, though several similar expressions are quoted; words of
Epicurus appear to be translated in Cicero, _De nat. Deorum_,
Book I, xviii s. f. , hominis esse specie deos confitendum est: we
must admit that the Gods are in the image of man. ], for saying that
man is a likeness of God. But now, though I could say much more,
madam, I must have compassion upon Polystratus's memory, and cease.
_Poly_. I am not so sure I am equal to it, Lycinus, as it is.
You have made it long, and exceeded your time limit. However, I
will do my best. See, I scurry off with my fingers in my ears, that
no alien sound may find its way in to disturb the arrangement; I do
not want to be hissed by my audience.
_Ly_. Well, the responsibility for a correct report lies with
you alone. And having now duly instructed you, I will retire for
the present. But when the verdict is brought into court, I will be
there to learn the result.
TOXARIS: A DIALOGUE OF FRIENDSHIP
_Mnesippus_. _Toxaris_
_Mne_. Now, Toxaris: do you mean to tell me that you people
actually _sacrifice_ to Orestes and Pylades? do you take them
for Gods?
_Tox_. Sacrifice to them? of course we do. It does not follow
that we think they are Gods: they were good men.
_Mne_. And in Scythia 'good men' receive sacrifice just the
same as Gods?
_Tox_. Not only that, but we honour them with feasts and
public gatherings.
_Mne_. But what do you expect from them? They are shades now,
so their goodwill can be no object.
_Tox_. Why, as to that, I think it may be just as well to have
a good understanding even with shades. But that is not all: in
honouring the dead we consider that we are also doing the best we
can for the living. Our idea is that by preserving the memory of
the noblest of mankind, we induce many people to follow their
example.
_Mne_. Ah, there you are right. But what could you find to
admire in Orestes and Pylades, that you should exalt them to
godhead? They were strangers to you: strangers, did I say? they
were enemies! Why, when they were shipwrecked on your coast, and
your ancestors laid hands on them, and took them off to be
sacrificed to Artemis, they assaulted the gaolers, overpowered the
garrison, slew the king, carried off the priestess, laid impious
hands on the Goddess herself, and so took ship, snapping their
fingers at Scythia and her laws. If you honour men for this kind of
thing, there will be plenty of people to follow their example, and
you will have your hands full. You may judge for yourselves, from
ancient precedent, whether it will suit you to have so many
Oresteses and Pyladeses putting into your ports. It seems to me
that it will soon end in your having no religion left at all: God
after God will be expatriated in the same manner, and then I
suppose you will supply their place by deifying their kidnappers,
thus rewarding sacrilege with sacrifice. If this is not your motive
in honouring Orestes and Pylades, I shall be glad to know what
other service they have rendered you, that you should change your
minds about them, and admit them to divine honours. Your ancestors
did their best to offer them up to Artemis: you offer up victims to
them. It seems an absurd inconsistency.
_Tox_. Now, in the first place, the incident you refer to is
very much to their credit. Think of those two entering on that vast
undertaking by themselves: sailing away from their country to the
distant Euxine [Footnote: See _Euxine_ in Notes. ]--that sea
unknown in those days to the Greeks, or known only to the
Argonauts--unmoved by the stories they heard of it, undeterred by
the inhospitable name it then bore, which I suppose referred to the
savage nations that dwelt upon its shores; think of their
courageous bearing after they were captured; how escape alone would
not serve them, but they must avenge their wrong upon the king, and
carry Artemis away over the seas. Are not these admirable deeds,
and shall not the doers be counted as Gods by all who esteem
prowess? However, this is not our motive in giving them divine
honours.
_Mne_. Proceed. What else of godlike and sublime was in their
conduct? Because from the seafaring point of view, there are any
number of merchants whose divinity I will maintain against theirs:
the Phoenicians, in particular, have sailed to every port in Greek
and foreign waters, let alone the Euxine, the Maeotian Lake and the
Bosphorus; year after year they explore every coast, only returning
home at the approach of winter. Hucksters though they be for the
most part, and fishmongers, you must deify them all, to be
consistent.
_Tox_. Now, now, Mnesippus, listen to me, and you shall see
how much more candid we barbarians are in our valuation of good men
than you Greeks. In Argos and Mycenae there is not so much as a
respectable tomb raised to Orestes and Pylades: in Scythia, they
have their temple, which is very appropriately dedicated to the two
friends in common, their sacrifices, and every honour. The fact of
their being foreigners does not prevent us from recognizing their
virtues. We do not inquire into the nationality of noble souls: we
can hear without envy of the illustrious deeds of our enemies; we
do justice to their merits, and count them Scythians in deed if not
in name. What particularly excites our reverent admiration in the
present case is the unparalleled loyalty of the two friends; in
them we have a model from which every man may learn how he must
share good and evil fortune with his friends, if he would enjoy the
esteem of all good Scythians. The sufferings they endured with and
for one another our ancestors recorded on a brazen pillar in the
Oresteum; and they made it law, that the education of their
children should begin with committing to memory all that is
inscribed thereon. More easily shall a child forget his own
father's name than be at fault in the achievements of Orestes and
Pylades. Again, in the temple corridor are pictures by the artists
of old, illustrating the story set forth on the pillar. Orestes is
first shown on shipboard, with his friend at his side. Next, the
ship has gone to pieces on the rocks; Orestes is captured and
bound; already Iphigenia prepares the two victims for sacrifice.
But on the opposite wall we see that Orestes has broken free;
he slays Thoas and many a Scythian; and the last scene shows
them sailing away, with Iphigenia and the Goddess; the Scythians
clutch vainly at the receding vessel; they cling to the rudder,
they strive to clamber on board; at last, utterly baffled,
they swim back to the shore, wounded or terrified. It is at this
point in their conflict with the Scythians that the devotion of the
friends is best illustrated: the painter makes each of them
disregard his own enemies, and ward off his friend's assailants,
seeking to intercept the arrows before they can reach him, and
counting lightly of death, if he can save his friend, and receive in
his own person the wounds that are meant for the other. Such
devotion, such loyal and loving partnership in danger, such true and
steadfast affection, we held to be more than human; it indicated a
spirit not to be found in common men. While the gale is prosperous,
we all take it very much amiss if our friends will not share equally
with us: but let the wind shift ever so little, and we leave them to
weather the storm by themselves. I must tell you that in Scythia no
quality is more highly esteemed than this of friendship; there is
nothing on which a Scythian prides himself so much as on sharing the
toils and dangers of his friend; just as nothing is a greater
reproach among us than treachery to a friend. We honour Orestes and
Pylades, then, because they excelled in the Scythian virtue of
loyalty, which we place above all others; and it is for this that we
have bestowed on them the name of Coraci, which in our language
means spirits of friendship.
_Mne_. Ah, Toxaris, so archery is not the only accomplishment
of the Scythians, I find; they excel in rhetorical as well as in
military skill. You have persuaded me already that you were right in
deifying Orestes and Pylades, though I thought differently just now.
I had no conception, either, what a painter you were.
selecting those who were noted for their skill in mixing and laying
on their colours? Be it so: we will have Polygnotus, Euphranor of
course, Apelles and Aetion; they can divide the work between them.
Euphranor shall colour the hair like his _Hera's_; Polygnotus the
comely brow and faintly blushing cheek, after his _Cassandra_ in
the Assembly-room at Delphi. Polygnotus shall also paint her
robe,--of the finest texture, part duly gathered in, but most of it
floating in the breeze. For the flesh-tints, which must be neither
too pale nor too high-coloured, Apelles shall copy his own
_Campaspe_. And lastly, Aetion shall give her _Roxana's_ lips. Nay,
we can do better: have we not Homer, best of painters, though a
Euphranor and an Apelles be present? Let him colour all like the
limbs of Menelaus, which he says were 'ivory tinged with red. ' He
too shall paint her calm 'ox- eyes,' and the Theban poet shall help
him to give them their 'violet' hue. Homer shall add her smile, her
white arms, her rosy finger-tips, and so complete the resemblance
to golden Aphrodite, to whom he has compared Brises' daughter with
far less reason. So far we may trust our sculptors and painters and
poets: but for her crowning glory, for the grace--nay, the choir of
Graces and Loves that encircle her--who shall portray them?
_Poly_. This was no earthly vision, Lycinus; surely she must
have dropped from the clouds. --And what was she doing?
_Ly_. In her hands was an open scroll; half read (so I surmised)
and half to be read. As she passed, she was making some remark to
one of her company; what it was I did not catch. But when she
smiled, ah! then, Polystratus, I beheld teeth whose whiteness,
whose unbroken regularity, who shall describe? Imagine a lovely
necklace of gleaming pearls, all of a size; and imagine those
dazzling rows set off by ruby lips. In that glimpse, I realized
what Homer meant by his 'carven ivory. ' Other women's teeth differ
in size; or they project; or there are gaps: here, all was equality
and evenness; pearl joined to pearl in unbroken line. Oh, 'twas a
wondrous sight, of beauty more than human.
_Poly_. Stay. I know now whom you mean, as well from your
description as from her nationality. You said that there were
eunuchs in her train?
_Ly_. Yes; and soldiers too.
_Poly_. My simple friend, the lady you have been describing is
a celebrity, and possesses the affections of an Emperor.
_Ly_. And her name?
_Poly_. Adds one more to the list of her charms; for it is the
same as that of Abradatas's wife. [Footnote: See _Panthea_ in
Notes. ] You know Xenophon's enthusiastic account of that beautiful
and virtuous woman? --you have read it a dozen times.
_Ly_. Yes; and every time I read it, it is as if she stood
before me. I almost hear her uttering the words the historian has
put into her mouth, and see her arming her husband and sending him
forth to battle.
_Poly_. Ah, my dear Lycinus, _this_ lady has passed you
but once, like a lightning flash; and your praises, I perceive, are
all for those external charms that strike the eye. You are yet a
stranger to her nobility of soul; you know not that higher, more
god-like beauty. _I_ am her fellow-countryman, I know her, and
have conversed with her many times. You are aware that gentleness,
humanity, magnanimity, modesty, culture, are things that I prize
more than beauty-and rightly; to do otherwise would be as absurd as
to value raiment above the body. Where physical perfection goes
hand-in-hand with spiritual excellence, there alone (as I maintain)
is true beauty. I could show you many a woman whose outward
loveliness is marred by what is within; who has but to open her
lips, and beauty stands confessed a faded, withered thing, the
mean, unlovely handmaid of that odious mistress, her soul. Such
women are like Egyptian temples: the shrine is fair and stately,
wrought of costly marble, decked out with gilding and painting: but
seek the God within, and you find an ape--an ibis--a goat--a cat.
Of how many women is the same thing true! Beauty unadorned is not
enough: and her true adornments are not purple and jewels, but
those others that I have mentioned, modesty, courtesy, humanity,
virtue and all that waits on virtue.
_Ly_. Why then, Polystratus, you shall give me story for story,
good measure, shaken together, out of your abundance: paint me the
portrait of her soul, that I may be no more her half-admirer.
_Poly_. This will be no light task, my friend. It is one thing
to commend what all the world can see, and quite another to reveal
what is hidden. I too shall want help with my portrait. Nor will
sculptors and painters suffice me: I must have philosophers; it is
by their canons that I must adjust the proportions of the figure,
if I am to attain to the perfection of ancient models.
To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said,
with far more truth than of aged Nestor's, that
honey from those lips distilled.
The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as
from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice
breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still
vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and
Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy,
to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans
and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers;
Philomela's self, 'full-throated songstress' though she be, is all
unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus and Amphion, whose spell
drew even lifeless things to hear them, would have dropped their
lyres and stood listening in silence to that voice. What should
Thracian Orpheus, what should Amphion, whose days upon Cithaeron
were divided betwixt his lyre and his herd,--what should they know
of true concord, of accurate rhythm, of accentuation and time, of
the harmonious adaptation of lyre and voice, of easy and graceful
execution? Yes; once hear her sing, Lycinus, and you will know
something of Sirens as well as of Gorgons: you have experienced
petrifaction; you will next learn what it is to stand entranced,
forgetting country and kindred. Wax will not avail you: her song
will penetrate through all; for therein is every grace that
Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope herself, could inspire. In a word,
imagine that you hear such notes as should issue from those lips,
those teeth that you have seen. Her perfect intonation, her pure
Ionic accent, her ready Attic eloquence, need not surprise you;
these are her birthright; for is not Smyrna Athens' daughter? And
what more natural than that she should love poetry, and make it her
chief study? Homer is her fellow citizen. --There you have my first
portrait; the portrait of a sweet-voiced songstress, though it
fall far short of its original. And now for others. For I do not
propose to make one of many, as you did. I aim higher: the complex
picture of so many beauties wrought into one, however artful be the
composition, cannot escape inconsistency: with me, each separate
virtue of her soul shall sit for its own portrait.
_Ly_. What a banquet awaits me! Here, assuredly, is good
measure. Mete it out; I ask for nothing better.
_Poly_. I proceed then to the delineation of Culture, the
confessed mistress of all mental excellences, particularly of all
acquired ones: I must render her features in all their manifold
variety; not even here shall my portraiture be inferior to your
own. I paint her, then, with every grace that Helicon can give.
Each of the Muses has but her single accomplishment, be it tragedy
or history or hymn: all these Culture shall have, and with them the
gifts of Hermes and of Apollo. The poet's graceful numbers, the
orator's persuasive power, the historian's learning, the sage's
counsel, all these shall be her adornments; the colours shall be
imperishable, and laid on with no niggardly brush. It is not my
fault, if I am unable to point to any classical model for the
portrait: the records of antiquity afford no precedent for a
culture so highly developed. --May I hang this beside the other? I
think it is a passable likeness.
_Ly_. Passable! My dear Polystratus, it is sublime;
exquisitely finished in every line.
_Poly_. Next I have to depict Wisdom; and here I shall have
occasion for many models, most of them ancient; one comes, like the
lady herself, from Ionia. The artists shall be Aeschines and
Socrates his master, most realistic of painters, for their heart
was in their work. We could choose no better model of wisdom than
Milesian Aspasia, the admired of the admirable 'Olympian' [Footnote:
See _Pericles_ in Notes. ]; her political knowledge and insight,
her shrewdness and penetration, shall all be transferred to our
canvas in their perfect measure. Aspasia, however, is only
preserved to us in miniature: _our_ proportions must be those
of a colossus.
_Ly_. Explain.
_Poly_. The portraits will be alike, but not on the same
scale. There is a difference between the little republic of ancient
Athens, and the Roman Empire of to-day; and there will be the same
difference in _scale_ (however close the resemblance in other
respects) between our huge canvas and that miniature. A second and
a third model may be found in Theano, and in the poetess of Lesbos;
nay, we may add Diotima too. Theano shall give grandeur to the
picture, Sappho elegance; and Diotima shall be represented as well
by her wisdom and sagacity, as by the qualities for which Socrates
commended her. The portrait is complete. Let it be hung.
_Ly_. 'Tis a fine piece of work. Proceed.
_Poly_. Courtesy, benevolence: that is now my subject. I have
to show forth her gentle disposition, her graciousness to
suppliants. She shall appear in the likeness of Theano--Antenor's
Theano this time--, of Arete and her daughter Nausicaa, and of
every other who in her high station has borne herself with
constancy. Next comes constancy of another kind,--constancy in
love; its original, the daughter of Icarius, 'constant' and 'wise,'
as Homer draws her; am I doing more than justice to his Penelope?
And there is another: our lady's namesake, Abradatas's wife; of her
we have already spoken.
_Ly_. Once more, noble work, Polystratus. And now your task
must be drawing to a close: here is a whole soul depicted; its
every virtue praised.
_Poly_. Not yet: the highest praise remains. Born to magnificence,
she clothes not herself in the pride of wealth; listens not to
Fortune's flattering tale, who tells her she is more than human;
but walks upon the common ground, far removed from all thought of
arrogance and ostentation. Every man is her equal; her greeting,
her smile are for all who approach her; and how acceptable is the
kindness of a superior, when it is free from every touch of
condescension! When the power of the great turns not to insolence
but to beneficence, we feel that Fortune has bestowed her gifts
aright. Here alone Envy has no place. For how should one man grudge
another his prosperity when he sees him using it with moderation,
not, like the Homeric Ate, an oppressor of the weak, trampling on
men's necks? It is otherwise with those meaner souls--victims of
their own ignoble vanity--, who, when Fortune has raised them
suddenly beyond their hopes into her winged aerial car, know no
rest, can never look behind them, but must ever press upwards. To
such the end soon comes: Icarus-like, with melted wax and moulting
feathers, they fall headlong into the billows, a derision to
mankind. The Daedaluses use their waxen wings with moderation: they
are but men; they husband their strength accordingly, and are
content to fly a little higher than the waves,--so little that the
sun never finds them dry; and that prudence is their salvation.
Therein lies this lady's highest praise. She has her reward: all
men pray that her wings may never droop, and that blessings may
increase upon her.
_Ly_. And may the prayer be granted! She deserves every
blessing: she is not outwardly fair alone, like Helen, but has a
soul within more fair, more lovely than her body. It is a fitting
crown to the happiness of our benevolent and gracious Emperor, that
in his day such a woman should be born; should be his, and her
affections his. It is blessedness indeed, to possess one of whom we
may say with Homer that she contends with golden Aphrodite in
beauty, and in works is the equal of Athene. Who of womankind shall
be compared to her
In comeliness, in wit, in goodly works?
_Poly_. Who indeed? --Lycinus, I have a proposal to make. Let
us combine our portraits, yours of the body and mine of the soul,
and throw them into a literary form, for the enjoyment of our
generation and of all posterity. Such a work will be more enduring
than those of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus; it will be far
removed from creations of wood and wax and colour, being inspired
by the Muses, in whom alone is that true portraiture that shows
forth in one likeness a lovely body and a virtuous soul.
DEFENCE OF THE 'PORTRAIT-STUDY'
_Polystratus_. _Lycinus_
_Poly_. Well, here is the lady's comment. _Your pages are most kind
and complimentary, I am sure, Lycinus. No one would have so
over-praised me who had not felt kindly towards me. But if you
would know my real feeling, here it is. I never do much like the
complaisant; they always strike me as insincere and wanting in
frankness. But when it comes to a set panegyric, in which my much
magnified virtues are painted in glaring colours, I blush and would
fain stop my ears, and feel that I am rather being made fun of than
commended.
Praise is tolerable up to the point at which the object of it can
still believe in the existence of the qualities attributed to him;
pass that point, and he is revolted and finds the flatterer out. Of
course I know there are plenty of people who are glad enough to
have non-existent qualities added to their praises; who do not mind
being called young and lusty in their decline, or Nireuses and
Phaons though they are hideous; who, Pelias-like, expect praise to
metamorphose or rejuvenate them.
But they are mistaken. Praise would indeed be a most precious
commodity if there were any way of converting its extravagances
into solid fact. But there being none, they can only be compared to
an ugly man on whom one should clap a beautiful mask, and who
should then be proud of those looks that any one could take from
him and break to pieces; revealed in his true likeness, he would be
only the more ridiculous for the contrast between casket and
treasure. Or, if you will, imagine a little man on stilts measuring
heights with people who have eighteen inches the better of him in
stocking feet_.
And then she told this story. There was a noble lady, fair and
comely in all respects except that she was short and ill-proportioned.
A poet wrote an ode in her honour, and included among her beauties
that of tallness; her slender height was illustrated from the poplar.
She was in ecstasies, as though the verses were making her grow, and
kept waving her hand. Which the poet seeing, and realizing her
appetite for praise, recited the lines again and again, till at last
one of the company whispered in his ear, 'Stop, my good man; you will
be making her get up. '
She added a similar but still more absurd anecdote of Stratonice
the wife of Seleucus, who offered a talent to the poet who should
best celebrate her hair. As a matter of fact she was bald, with not
a hair to call her own. But what matter what her head was like, or
that every one knew how a long illness had treated her? she
listened to these abandoned poets telling of hyacinthine locks,
plaiting thick tresses, and making imaginary curls as crisp as
parsley.
All such surrenders to flattery were laughed to scorn, with the
addition that many people were just as fond of being flattered and
fooled by portrait-painters as these by verbal artists. _What
these people look for in a painter_ (she said) _is readiness
to improve nature: Some of them insist upon the artist's taking a
little off their noses, deepening the shade of their eyes, or
otherwise idealizing them to order; it quite escapes them that the
garlands they afterwards put on the picture are offered to another
person who bears no relation to themselves_.
And so she went on, finding much in your composition to approve,
but displeased in particular with your likening her to Hera and
Aphrodite. _Such comparisons are far too high for me_, she
said, _or indeed for any of womankind. Why, I would not have had
you put me on a level with women of the Heroic Age, with a
Penelope, an Arete, a Theano; how much less with the chief of the
Goddesses. Where the Gods are concerned_ (she continued; and
mark her here), _I am very apprehensive and timid. I fear that to
accept a panegyric like this would be to make a Cassiopeia of
myself; though indeed_ she _only challenged the Nereids, and
stopped short of Hera and Aphrodite_.
So, Lycinus, she insisted that you must recast all this; otherwise
she must call the Goddesses to witness that you had written against
her wishes, and leave you to the knowledge that the piece would be
an annoyance to her, if it circulated in its present shape, so
lacking in reverence and piety. The outrage on reverence would be
put down to her, if she allowed herself to be likened to her of
Cnidus and her of the Garden. She would have you bear in mind the
close of your discourse, where you spoke of the unassuming modesty
that attempted no superhuman flights, but kept near the earth. It
was inconsistent with that to take the same woman up to heaven and
compare her with Goddesses.
She would like to be allowed as much sense as Alexander; he, when
his architect proposed to transform Mount Athos into a vast image
of the King with a pair of cities in his hands, shrank from the
grandiose proposal; such presumption was beyond him; such patent
megalomania must be suppressed; leave Athos alone, he said, and do
not degrade a mighty mountain to the similitude of a poor human
body. This only showed the greatness of Alexander, and itself
constituted in the eyes of all future generations a monument higher
than any Athos; to be able to scorn so extraordinary an honour was
itself magnanimity.
So she commends your work of art, and your selective method, but
cannot recognize the likeness. She does not come up to the
description, nor near it, for indeed no woman could. Accordingly
she sends you back your laudation, and pays homage to the originals
from which you drew it. Confine your praises within the limits of
humanity; if the shoe is too big, it may chance to trip her up.
Then there was another point which I was to impress upon you.
_I often hear_, she said,--_but whether it is true, you men
know better than I--that at Olympia the victors are not allowed to
have their statues set up larger than life; the Stewards see to it
that no one transgresses this rule, examining the statues even more
scrupulously than they did the competitor's qualification. Take
care that we do not get convicted of false proportions, and find
our statue thrown down by the Stewards_.
And now I have given you her message. It is for you, Lycinus, to
overhaul your work, and by removing these blemishes avoid the
offence. They shocked and made her nervous as I read; she kept on
addressing the Goddesses in propitiatory words; and such feelings
may surely be permitted to her sex. For that matter, to be quite
frank, I shared them to some extent. At the first hearing I found
no offence; but as soon as she put her finger on the fault, I began
to agree. You know what happens with visible objects; if we look at
them at close quarters, just under our eyes, I mean, we distinguish
nothing clearly; but stepping back to the right distance, we get a
clear conception of what is right and what is wrong about them.
That was my experience here.
After all, to compare a mortal to Hera and Aphrodite is cheapening
the Goddesses, and nothing else. In such comparisons the small is
not so much magnified as the great is diminished and reduced. If a
giant and a dwarf were walking together, and their heights had to
be equalized, no efforts of the dwarf could effect it, however much
he stood on tiptoe; the giant must stoop and make himself out
shorter than he is. So in this sort of portraiture: the human is
not so much exalted by the similitude as the divine is belittled
and pulled down. If indeed a lack of earthly beauties forced the
artist upon scaling Heaven, he might perhaps be acquitted of
blasphemy; but your enterprise was so needless; why Aphrodite and
Hera, when you have all mortal beauty to choose from?
Prune and chasten, then, Lycinus. All this is not quite like you,
who never used to be over-ready with your commendation; you seem to
have gone now to the opposite extreme of prodigality, and developed
from a niggard into a spendthrift of praise. Do not be ashamed to
make alterations in what you have already published, either.
They
say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus. He stood
behind the doors when he had opened them for the first time to let
the work be seen, and listened to the comments favourable or the
reverse. One found the nose too broad, another the face too long,
and so on. When the company was gone, he shut himself up again to
correct and adapt his statue to the prevailing taste. Advice so
many-headed was not to be despised; the many must after all see
further than the one, though that one be Phidias. There is the
counsel of a friend and well-wisher to back up the lady's message.
_Ly_. Why, Polystratus, I never knew what an orator you were.
After that eloquent close-packed indictment of my booklet, I almost
despair of the defence. You and she were not quite judicial,
though; you less than she, in condemning the accused when its
counsel was not in court. It is always easy to win a walk-over,
you know; so no wonder we were convicted, not being allowed to
speak or given the ear of the court. But, still more monstrous, you
were accusers and jury at once. Well, what am I to do? accept the
verdict and hold my tongue? pen a palinode like Stesichorus? or
will you grant an appeal?
_Poly_. Surely, if you have anything to say for yourself. For
you will be heard not by opponents, as you say, but by friends.
Indeed, my place is with you in the dock.
_Ly_. How I wish I could, have spoken in her own presence!
that would have been far better; but I must do it by proxy.
However, if you will report me to her as well as you did her to me,
I will adventure.
_Poly_. Trust me to do justice to the defence; but put it
shortly, in mercy to my memory.
_Ly_. So severe an indictment should by rights be met at
length; but for your sake I will cut it short. Put these
considerations before her from me, then.
_Poly_. No, not that way, please. Make your speech, just as
though she were listening, and I will reproduce you to her.
_Ly_. Very well, then. She is here; she has just delivered the
oration which you have described to me; it is now counsel's turn.
And yet--I must confide my feelings to you--you have made my
undertaking somehow more formidable; you see the beads gather on my
brow; my courage goes; I seem to see her there; my situation
bewilders me. Yet begin I will; how can I draw back when she is
there?
_Poly_. Ah, but her face promises a kindly hearing; see how
bright and gracious. Pluck up heart, man, and begin.
_Ly_. Most noble lady, in what you term the great and excessive
praise that I bestowed upon you, I find no such high testimony to
your merits as that which you have borne yourself by your surprise
at the attribution of divinity. That one thing surpasses all that I
have said of you, and my only excuse for not having added this
trait to my portrait is that I was not aware of it; if I had been,
no other should have had precedence of it. In this light I find
myself, far from exaggerating, to have fallen much short of the
truth. Consider the magnitude of this omission, the convincing
demonstration of a sterling character and a right disposition which
I lost; for those will be the best in human relations who are most
earnest in their dealings with the divine. Why, were it decided
that I must correct my words and retouch my statue, I should do it
not by presuming to take away from it, but by adding this as its
crowning grace. But from another point of view I have a great debt
of gratitude to acknowledge. I commend your natural modesty, and
your freedom from that vanity and pride which so exalted a position
as yours might excuse. The best witness to my correctness is just
the exception that you have taken to my words. That instead of
receiving the praise I offered as your right you should be
disturbed at it and call it excessive, is the proof of your
unassuming modesty. Nevertheless, the more you reveal that this is
your view of praise, the stronger proof you give of your own
worthiness to be praised. You are an exact illustration of what
Diogenes said when some one asked him how he might become famous:--
'by despising fame. ' So if I were asked who most deserve praise, I
should answer, Those who refuse it.
But I am perhaps straying from the point. What I have to defend is
the having likened you, in giving your outward form, to the Cnidian
and the Garden _Aphrodite_, to _Hera_ and _Athene_; such
comparisons you find out of all proportion. I will deal directly
with them, then. It has indeed been said long ago that poets and
painters are irresponsible; that is still more true, I conceive, of
panegyrists, even humble prose ones like myself who are not run
away with by their metre. Panegyric is a chartered thing, with no
standard quantitative measure to which it must conform; its one and
only aim is to express deep admiration and set its object in the
most enviable light. However, I do not intend to take that line of
defence; you might think I did so because I had no other open.
But I have. I refer you to the proper formula of panegyric, which
requires the author to introduce illustrations, and depends mainly
on their goodness for success. Now this goodness is shown not when
the illustration is just like the thing illustrated, nor yet when
it is inferior, but when it is as high above it as may be. If in
praising a dog one should remark that it was bigger than a fox or a
cat, would you regard him as a skilful panegyrist? certainly not.
Or if he calls it the equal of a wolf, he has not made very much of
it so either. Where is the right thing to be found? why, in
likening the dog's size and spirit to the lion's. So the poet who
would praise Orion's dog called it the lion-queller. There you have
the perfect panegyric of the dog. Or take Milo of Croton, Glaucus
of Carystus, or Polydamas; to say of them by way of panegyric that
each of them was stronger than a woman would be to make oneself a
laughing-stock; one man instead of the woman would not much mend
matters. But what, pray, does a famous poet make of Glaucus? --
To match those hands not e'en the might
Of Pollux' self had dared;
Alcmena's son, that iron wight,
Had shrunk--
See what Gods he equals him to, or rather what Gods he puts him
above. And Glaucus took no exception to being praised at the
expense of his art's patron deities; nor yet did they send any
judgement on athlete or poet for irreverence; both continued to be
honoured in Greece, one for his might, and the other for this even
more than for his other odes. Do not be surprised, then, that when
I wished to conform to the canons of my art and find an
illustration, I took an exalted one, as reason was that I should.
You used the word flattery. To dislike those who practise it is
only what you should do, and I honour you for it. But I would have
you distinguish between panegyric proper and the flatterer's
exaggeration of it. The flatterer praises for selfish ends,
cares little for truth, and makes it his business to magnify
indiscriminately; most of his effects consist in lying additions of
his own; he thinks nothing of making Thersites handsomer than
Achilles, or telling Nestor he is younger than any of the host; he
will swear Croesus's son hears better than Melampus, and give
Phineus better sight than Lynceus, if he sees his way to a profit
on the lie. But the panegyrist pure and simple, instead of lying
outright, or inventing a quality that does not exist, takes the
virtues his subject really does possess, though possibly not in
large measure, and makes the most of them. The horse is really
distinguished among the animals we know for light-footed speed;
well, in praising a horse, he will hazard:
The corn-stalks brake not 'neath his airy tread.
He will not be frightened of 'whirlwind-footed steeds. ' If his
theme is a noble house, with everything handsome about it,
Zeus on Olympus dwells in such a home,
we shall be told. But your flatterer would use that line about the
swineherd's hovel, if he saw a chance of getting anything out of
the swineherd. Demetrius Poliorcetes had a flatterer called
Cynaethus who, when he was gravelled for lack of matter, found some
in a cough that troubled his patron--he cleared his throat so
musically!
There you have one criterion: flatterers do not draw the line at a
lie if it will please their patrons; panegyrists aim merely at
bringing into relief what really exists. But there is another great
difference: the flatterers exaggerate as much as ever they can; the
panegyrists in the midst of exaggeration observe the limitations of
decency. And now that you have one or two of the many tests for
flattery and panegyric proper, I hope you will not treat all praise
as suspect, but make distinctions and assign each specimen to its
true class.
By your leave I will proceed to apply the two definitions to what I
wrote; which of them fits it? If it had been an ugly woman that I
likened to the Cnidian statue, I should deserve to be thought a
toady, further gone in flattery than Cynaethus. But as it was one
for whose charms I can call all men to witness, my shot was not so
far out.
Now you will perhaps say--nay, you have said already--Praise my
beauty, if you will; but the praise should not have been of that
invidious kind which compares a woman to Goddesses. Well, I will
keep truth at arm's length no longer; I did _not_, dear lady,
compare you to Goddesses, but to the handiwork in marble and bronze
and ivory of certain good artists. There is no impiety, surely, in
illustrating mortal beauty by the work of mortal hands--unless you
take the thing that Phidias fashioned to be indeed Athene, or
Praxiteles's not much later work at Cnidus to be the heavenly
Aphrodite. But would that be quite a worthy conception of divine
beings? I take the real presentment of them to be beyond the reach
of human imitation.
But granting even that it had been the actual Goddesses to whom I
likened you, it would be no new track, of which I had been the
pioneer; it had been trodden before by many a great poet, most of
all by your fellow citizen Homer, who will kindly now come and
share my defence, on pain of sharing my sentence. I will ask him,
then--or rather you for him; for it is one of your merits to have
all his finest passages by heart--what think you, then, of his
saying about the captive Briseis that in her mourning for Patroclus
she was 'Golden Aphrodite's peer'? A little further on, Aphrodite
alone not meeting the case, it is:
So spake that weeping dame, a match for Goddesses.
When he talks like that, do you take offence and fling the book
away, or has _he_ your licence to expatiate in panegyric?
Whether he has yours or not, he has that of all these centuries,
wherein not a critic has found fault with him for it, not he
that dared to scourge his statue [Footnote: Zoilus, called
Homeromastix. ], not he whose marginal pen [Footnote: Aristarclius. ]
bastarded so many of his verses. Now, shall he have leave to match
with Golden Aphrodite a barbarian woman, and her in tears, while I,
lest I should describe the beauty that you like not to hear of, am
forbidden to compare certain images to a lady who is ever bright
and smiling--that beauty which mortals share with Gods?
When he had Agamemnon in hand, he was most chary of divine
similitudes, to be sure! what economy and moderation in his use of
them! Let us see--eyes and head from Zeus, belt from Ares, chest
from Posidon; why, he deals the man out piecemeal among the host of
Heaven. Elsewhere, Agamemnon is 'like baleful Ares'; others have
their heavenly models; Priam's son (a Phrygian, mark) is 'of form
divine,' the son of Peleus is again and again 'a match for Gods. '
But let us come back to the feminine instances You remember, of
course,
--a match
For Artemis or golden Aphrodite;
and
Like Artemis adown the mountain slope.
But he does not even limit himself to comparing the whole man to a
God; Euphorbus's mere hair is called like the Graces--when it is
dabbled with blood, too. In fact the practice is so universal that
no branch of poetry can do without its ornaments from Heaven.
Either let all these be blotted, or let me have the same licence.
Moreover, illustration is so irresponsible that Homer allows
himself to convey his compliments to Goddesses by using creatures
inferior to them. Hera is ox-eyed. Another poet colours Aphrodite's
eyes from the violet. As for fingers like the rose, it takes but
little of Homer's society to bring us acquainted with them.
Still, so far we do not get beyond mere looks; a man is only called
_like_ a God. But think of the wholesale adaptation of their
names, by Dionysiuses, Hephaestions, Zenos, Posidoniuses,
Hermaeuses. Leto, wife of Evagoras, King of Cyprus, even dispensed
with adaptation; but her divine namesake, who could have turned her
into stone like Niobe, took no offence. What need to mention that
the most religious race on earth, the Egyptian, never tires of
divine names? most of those it uses hail from Heaven.
Consequently, there is not the smallest occasion for you to be
nervous about the panegyric. If what I wrote contains anything
offensive to the deity, you are not responsible, unless you
consider we are responsible for all that goes in at our ears; no, I
shall pay the penalty--as soon as the Gods have settled with Homer
and the other poets. Ah, and they have not done so yet with the
best of all philosophers [Footnote: Lucian's 'best of all
philosophers' might be Plato, who is their spokesman in 'The
Fisher' (see Sections 14, 22), or Epicurus, in the light of two
passages in the 'Alexander' (Sections 47, 61) in which he almost
declares himself an Epicurean. The exact words are not found in
Plato, though several similar expressions are quoted; words of
Epicurus appear to be translated in Cicero, _De nat. Deorum_,
Book I, xviii s. f. , hominis esse specie deos confitendum est: we
must admit that the Gods are in the image of man. ], for saying that
man is a likeness of God. But now, though I could say much more,
madam, I must have compassion upon Polystratus's memory, and cease.
_Poly_. I am not so sure I am equal to it, Lycinus, as it is.
You have made it long, and exceeded your time limit. However, I
will do my best. See, I scurry off with my fingers in my ears, that
no alien sound may find its way in to disturb the arrangement; I do
not want to be hissed by my audience.
_Ly_. Well, the responsibility for a correct report lies with
you alone. And having now duly instructed you, I will retire for
the present. But when the verdict is brought into court, I will be
there to learn the result.
TOXARIS: A DIALOGUE OF FRIENDSHIP
_Mnesippus_. _Toxaris_
_Mne_. Now, Toxaris: do you mean to tell me that you people
actually _sacrifice_ to Orestes and Pylades? do you take them
for Gods?
_Tox_. Sacrifice to them? of course we do. It does not follow
that we think they are Gods: they were good men.
_Mne_. And in Scythia 'good men' receive sacrifice just the
same as Gods?
_Tox_. Not only that, but we honour them with feasts and
public gatherings.
_Mne_. But what do you expect from them? They are shades now,
so their goodwill can be no object.
_Tox_. Why, as to that, I think it may be just as well to have
a good understanding even with shades. But that is not all: in
honouring the dead we consider that we are also doing the best we
can for the living. Our idea is that by preserving the memory of
the noblest of mankind, we induce many people to follow their
example.
_Mne_. Ah, there you are right. But what could you find to
admire in Orestes and Pylades, that you should exalt them to
godhead? They were strangers to you: strangers, did I say? they
were enemies! Why, when they were shipwrecked on your coast, and
your ancestors laid hands on them, and took them off to be
sacrificed to Artemis, they assaulted the gaolers, overpowered the
garrison, slew the king, carried off the priestess, laid impious
hands on the Goddess herself, and so took ship, snapping their
fingers at Scythia and her laws. If you honour men for this kind of
thing, there will be plenty of people to follow their example, and
you will have your hands full. You may judge for yourselves, from
ancient precedent, whether it will suit you to have so many
Oresteses and Pyladeses putting into your ports. It seems to me
that it will soon end in your having no religion left at all: God
after God will be expatriated in the same manner, and then I
suppose you will supply their place by deifying their kidnappers,
thus rewarding sacrilege with sacrifice. If this is not your motive
in honouring Orestes and Pylades, I shall be glad to know what
other service they have rendered you, that you should change your
minds about them, and admit them to divine honours. Your ancestors
did their best to offer them up to Artemis: you offer up victims to
them. It seems an absurd inconsistency.
_Tox_. Now, in the first place, the incident you refer to is
very much to their credit. Think of those two entering on that vast
undertaking by themselves: sailing away from their country to the
distant Euxine [Footnote: See _Euxine_ in Notes. ]--that sea
unknown in those days to the Greeks, or known only to the
Argonauts--unmoved by the stories they heard of it, undeterred by
the inhospitable name it then bore, which I suppose referred to the
savage nations that dwelt upon its shores; think of their
courageous bearing after they were captured; how escape alone would
not serve them, but they must avenge their wrong upon the king, and
carry Artemis away over the seas. Are not these admirable deeds,
and shall not the doers be counted as Gods by all who esteem
prowess? However, this is not our motive in giving them divine
honours.
_Mne_. Proceed. What else of godlike and sublime was in their
conduct? Because from the seafaring point of view, there are any
number of merchants whose divinity I will maintain against theirs:
the Phoenicians, in particular, have sailed to every port in Greek
and foreign waters, let alone the Euxine, the Maeotian Lake and the
Bosphorus; year after year they explore every coast, only returning
home at the approach of winter. Hucksters though they be for the
most part, and fishmongers, you must deify them all, to be
consistent.
_Tox_. Now, now, Mnesippus, listen to me, and you shall see
how much more candid we barbarians are in our valuation of good men
than you Greeks. In Argos and Mycenae there is not so much as a
respectable tomb raised to Orestes and Pylades: in Scythia, they
have their temple, which is very appropriately dedicated to the two
friends in common, their sacrifices, and every honour. The fact of
their being foreigners does not prevent us from recognizing their
virtues. We do not inquire into the nationality of noble souls: we
can hear without envy of the illustrious deeds of our enemies; we
do justice to their merits, and count them Scythians in deed if not
in name. What particularly excites our reverent admiration in the
present case is the unparalleled loyalty of the two friends; in
them we have a model from which every man may learn how he must
share good and evil fortune with his friends, if he would enjoy the
esteem of all good Scythians. The sufferings they endured with and
for one another our ancestors recorded on a brazen pillar in the
Oresteum; and they made it law, that the education of their
children should begin with committing to memory all that is
inscribed thereon. More easily shall a child forget his own
father's name than be at fault in the achievements of Orestes and
Pylades. Again, in the temple corridor are pictures by the artists
of old, illustrating the story set forth on the pillar. Orestes is
first shown on shipboard, with his friend at his side. Next, the
ship has gone to pieces on the rocks; Orestes is captured and
bound; already Iphigenia prepares the two victims for sacrifice.
But on the opposite wall we see that Orestes has broken free;
he slays Thoas and many a Scythian; and the last scene shows
them sailing away, with Iphigenia and the Goddess; the Scythians
clutch vainly at the receding vessel; they cling to the rudder,
they strive to clamber on board; at last, utterly baffled,
they swim back to the shore, wounded or terrified. It is at this
point in their conflict with the Scythians that the devotion of the
friends is best illustrated: the painter makes each of them
disregard his own enemies, and ward off his friend's assailants,
seeking to intercept the arrows before they can reach him, and
counting lightly of death, if he can save his friend, and receive in
his own person the wounds that are meant for the other. Such
devotion, such loyal and loving partnership in danger, such true and
steadfast affection, we held to be more than human; it indicated a
spirit not to be found in common men. While the gale is prosperous,
we all take it very much amiss if our friends will not share equally
with us: but let the wind shift ever so little, and we leave them to
weather the storm by themselves. I must tell you that in Scythia no
quality is more highly esteemed than this of friendship; there is
nothing on which a Scythian prides himself so much as on sharing the
toils and dangers of his friend; just as nothing is a greater
reproach among us than treachery to a friend. We honour Orestes and
Pylades, then, because they excelled in the Scythian virtue of
loyalty, which we place above all others; and it is for this that we
have bestowed on them the name of Coraci, which in our language
means spirits of friendship.
_Mne_. Ah, Toxaris, so archery is not the only accomplishment
of the Scythians, I find; they excel in rhetorical as well as in
military skill. You have persuaded me already that you were right in
deifying Orestes and Pylades, though I thought differently just now.
I had no conception, either, what a painter you were.
