No More Learning

What is this, Xanthus? who has burned you?

_Xan_. Hephaestus. Oh, I am burned to cinders! oh, oh, oh, I boil!

_Sea_. What made him use his fire upon you?

_Xan_. Why, it was all that son of your Thetis. He was slaughtering
the Phrygians; I tried entreaties, but he went raging on, damming my
stream with their bodies; I was so sorry for the poor wretches, I
poured down to see if I could make a flood and frighten him off them.
But Hephaestus happened to be about, and he must have collected every
particle of fire he had in Etna or anywhere else; on he came at me,
scorched my elms and tamarisks, baked the poor fishes and eels, made
me boil over, and very nearly dried me up altogether. You see what a
state I am in with the burns.

_Sea_. Indeed you are thick and hot, Xanthus, and no wonder; the dead
men's blood accounts for one, and the fire for the other, according to
your story. Well, and serve you right; assaulting my grandson, indeed!
paying no more respect to the son of a Nereid than that!

_Xan_. Was I not to take compassion on the Phrygians? they are my
neighbours.

_Sea_. And was Hephaestus not to take compassion on Achilles? He is
the son of Thetis.

H.




XII

_Doris. Thetis_


_Dor_. Crying, dear?

_The_. Oh, Doris, I have just seen a lovely girl thrown into a chest
by her father, and her little baby with her; and he gave the chest to
some sailors, and told them, as soon as they were far enough from the
shore, to drop it into the water; he meant them to be drowned, poor
things.

_Dor_. Oh, sister, but why? What was it all about? Did you hear?

_The_. Her father, Acrisius, wanted to keep her from marrying. And, as
she was so pretty, he shut her up in an iron room. And--I don't know
whether it's true--but they say that Zeus turned himself into gold,
and came showering down through the roof, and she caught the gold in
her lap,--and it was Zeus all the time. And then her father found out
about it--he is a horrid, jealous old man--and he was furious, and
thought she had been receiving a lover; and he put her into the chest,
the moment the child was born.

_Dor_. And what did she do then?

_The_. She never said a word against her own sentence; _she_ was ready
to submit: but she pleaded hard for the child's life, and cried, and
held him up for his grandfather to see; and there was the sweet babe,
that thought no harm, smiling at the waves. I am beginning again, at
the mere remembrance of it.

_Dor_. You make me cry, too. And is it all over?

_The_. No; the chest has carried them safely so far; it is by
Seriphus.

_Dor_. Then why should we not save them? We can put the chest into
those fishermen's nets, look; and then of course they will be hauled
in, and come safe to shore.

_The_. The very thing. She shall not die; nor the child, sweet
treasure!

F.




XIV

_Triton. Iphianassa. Doris. Nereids_


_Tri_. Well, ladies: so the monster you sent against the daughter of
Cepheus has got killed himself, and never done Andromeda any harm at
all!

_Nereid_. Who did it? I suppose Cepheus was just using his daughter as
a bait, and had a whole army waiting in ambush to kill him?

_Tri_. No, no. --Iphianassa, you remember Perseus, Danae's boy? --they
were both thrown into the sea by the boy's grandfather, in that chest,
you know, and you took pity on them.

_Iph_. I know; why, I suppose he is a fine handsome young fellow by
now?

_Tri_. It was he who killed your monster.

_Iph_. But why? This was not the way to show his gratitude.

_Tri_. I'll tell you all about it. The king had sent him on this
expedition against the Gorgons, and when he got to Libya--

_Iph_. How did he get there? all by himself? he must have had some one
to help him? --it is a dangerous journey otherwise.

_Tri_. He flew,--Athene gave him wings. --Well, so when he got to where
the Gorgons were living, he caught them napping, I suppose, cut off
Medusa's head, and flew away.

_Iph_. How could he see them? The Gorgons are a forbidden sight.
Whoever looks at them will never look at any one else again.

_Tri_. Athene held up her shield--I heard him telling Andromeda and
Cepheus about it afterwards--Athene showed him the reflection of the
Gorgon in her shield, which is as bright as any mirror; so he took
hold of her hair in his left hand, grasped his scimetar with the
right, still looking at the reflection, cut off her head, and was off
before her sisters woke up. Lowering his flight as he reached the
Ethiopian coast yonder, he caught sight of Andromeda, fettered to a
jutting rock, her hair hanging loose about her shoulders; ye Gods,
what loveliness was there exposed to view! And first pity of her hard
fate prompted him to ask the cause of her doom: but Fate had decreed
the maiden's deliverance, and presently Love stole upon him, and he
resolved to save her. The hideous monster now drew near, and would
have swallowed her: but the youth, hovering above, smote him with the
drawn scimetar in his right hand, and with his left uncovered the
petrifying Gorgon's head: in one moment the monster was lifeless; all
of him that had met that gaze was turned to stone. Then Perseus
released the maiden from her fetters, and supported her, as with timid
steps she descended from the slippery rock. --And now he is to marry
her in Cepheus's palace, and take her home to Argos; so that where she
looked for death, she has found an uncommonly good match.

_Iph_. I am not sorry to hear it. It is no fault of hers, if her
mother has the vanity to set up for our rival.

_Dor_. Still, she _is_ Andromeda's mother; and we should have had our
revenge on her through the daughter.

_Iph_. My dear, let bygones be bygones. What matter if a barbarian
queen's tongue runs away with her? She is sufficiently punished by the
fright. So let us take this marriage in good part.

F.




XV

_West Wind. South Wind_


_W_. Such a splendid pageant I never saw on the waves, since the day I
first blew. You were not there, Notus? _S_. Pageant, Zephyr? what
pageant? and whose?

_W_. You missed a most ravishing spectacle; such another chance you
are not likely to have.

_S_. I was busy with the Red Sea; and I gave the Indian coasts a
little airing too. So I don't know what you are talking about.

_W_. Well, you know Agenor the Sidonian?

_S_. Europa's father? what of him?

_W_. Europa it is that I am going to tell you about.

_S_. You need not tell me that Zeus has been in love with her this
long while; that is stale news.

_W_. We can pass the love, then, and get on to the sequel.

Europa had come down for a frolic on the beach with her playfellows.
Zeus transformed himself into a bull, and joined the game. A fine
sight he was--spotless white skin, crumpled horns, and gentle eyes. He
gambolled on the shore with them, bellowing most musically, till
Europa took heart of grace and mounted him. No sooner had she done it
than, with her on his back, Zeus made off at a run for the sea,
plunged in, and began swimming; she was dreadfully frightened, but
kept her seat by clinging to one of his horns with her left hand,
while the right held her skirt down against the puffs of wind.

_S_. A lovely sight indeed, Zephyr, in every sense--Zeus swimming with
his darling on his back.

_W_. Ay, but what followed was lovelier far.

Every wave fell; the sea donned her robe of peace to speed them on
their way; we winds made holiday and joined the train, all eyes;
fluttering Loves skimmed the waves, just dipping now and again a
heedless toe--in their hands lighted torches, on their lips the
nuptial song; up floated Nereids--few but were prodigal of naked
charms--and clapped their hands, and kept pace on dolphin steeds; the
Triton company, with every sea-creature that frights not the eye,
tripped it around the maid; for Posidon on his car, with Amphitrite by
him, led them in festal mood, ushering his brother through the waves.
But, crowning all, a Triton pair bore Aphrodite, reclined on a shell,
heaping the bride with all flowers that blow.

So went it from Phoenice even to Crete. But, when he set foot on the
isle, behold, the bull was no more; 'twas Zeus that took Europa's hand
and led her to the Dictaean Cave--blushing and downward-eyed; for she
knew now the end of her bringing.

But we plunged this way and that, and roused the still seas anew.

_S_. Ah me, what sights of bliss! and I was looking at griffins, and
elephants, and blackamoors!

H.




DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD

I

_Diogenes. Pollux_


_Diog_. Pollux, I have a commission for you; next time you go up--and
I think it is your turn for earth to-morrow--if you come across
Menippus the Cynic--you will find him about the Craneum at Corinth, or
in the Lyceum, laughing at the philosophers' disputes--well, give him
this message:--Menippus, Diogenes advises you, if mortal subjects for
laughter begin to pall, to come down below, and find much richer
material; where you are now, there is always a dash of uncertainty in
it; the question will always intrude--who can be quite sure about the
hereafter? Here, you can have your laugh out in security, like me; it
is the best of sport to see millionaires, governors, despots, now mean
and insignificant; you can only tell them by their lamentations, and
the spiritless despondency which is the legacy of better days. Tell
him this, and mention that he had better stuff his wallet with plenty
of lupines, and any un-considered trifles he can snap up in the way of
pauper doles [Footnote: In the Greek, 'a Hecate's repast lying at a
street corner. ' 'Rich men used to make offerings to Hecate on the 30th
of every month as Goddess of roads at street corners; and these
offerings were at once pounced upon by the poor, or, as here, the
Cynics. ' _Jacobitz_. ] or lustral eggs. [Footnote: 'Eggs were often
used as purificatory offerings and set out in front of the house
purified. ' _Id_. ]

_Pol_. I will tell him, Diogenes. But give me some idea of his
appearance.

_Diog_. Old, bald, with a cloak that allows him plenty of light and
ventilation, and is patched all colours of the rainbow; always
laughing, and usually gibing at pretentious philosophers.

_Pol_. Ah, I cannot mistake him now.

_Diog_. May I give you another message to those same philosophers?

_Pol_. Oh, I don't mind; go on.

_Diog_. Charge them generally to give up playing the fool, quarrelling
over metaphysics, tricking each other with horn and crocodile puzzles
[Footnote: See _Puzzles_ in Notes. ] and teaching people to waste wit
on such absurdities.

_Pol_. Oh, but if I say anything against their wisdom, they will call
me an ignorant blockhead.

_Diog_. Then tell them from me to go to the devil.

_Pol_. Very well; rely upon me.

_Diog_. And then, my most obliging of Polluxes, there is this for the
rich:--O vain fools, why hoard gold? why all these pains over interest
sums and the adding of hundred to hundred, when you must shortly come
to us with nothing beyond the dead-penny?

_Pol_. They shall have their message too.

_Diog_. Ah, and a word to the handsome and strong; Megillus of
Corinth, and Damoxenus the wrestler will do. Inform them that auburn
locks, eyes bright or black, rosy cheeks, are as little in fashion
here as tense muscles or mighty shoulders; man and man are as like as
two peas, tell them, when it comes to bare skull and no beauty.

_Pol_. That is to the handsome and strong; yes, I can manage that.

_Diog_. Yes, my Spartan, and here is for the poor. There are a great
many of them, very sorry for themselves and resentful of their
helplessness. Tell them to dry their tears and cease their cries;
explain to them that here one man is as good as another, and they will
find those who were rich on earth no better than themselves. As for
your Spartans, you will not mind scolding them, from me, upon their
present degeneracy?

_Pol_. No, no, Diogenes; leave Sparta alone; that is going too far;
your other commissions I will execute.

_Diog_. Oh, well, let them off, if you care about it; but tell all the
others what I said.

H.




II

_Before Pluto: Croesus, Midas, and Sardanapalus v. Menippus_


_Cr_.
Pluto, we can stand this snarling Cynic no longer in our
neighbourhood; either you must transfer him to other quarters, or we
are going to migrate.

_Pl_. Why, what harm does he do to your ghostly community?

_Cr_. Midas here, and Sardanapalus and I, can never get in a good cry
over the old days of gold and luxury and treasure, but he must be
laughing at us, and calling us rude names; 'slaves' and 'garbage,' he
says we are. And then he sings; and that throws us out. --In short, he
is a nuisance.

_Pl_. Menippus, what's this I hear?

_Me_. All perfectly true, Pluto. I detest these abject rascals! Not
content with having lived the abominable lives they did, they keep on
talking about it now they are dead, and harping on the good old days.
I take a positive pleasure in annoying them.

_Pl_. Yes, but you mustn't. They have had terrible losses; they feel
it deeply.

_Me_. Pluto! you are not going to lend _your_ countenance to these
whimpering fools?

_Pl_. It isn't that: but I won't have you quarrelling.

_Me_. Well, you scum of your respective nations, let there be no
misunderstanding; I am going on just the same. Wherever you are, there
shall I be also; worrying, jeering, singing you down.

_Cr_. Presumption!

_Me_. Not a bit of it. Yours was the presumption, when you expected
men to fall down before you, when you trampled on men's liberty, and
forgot there was such a thing as death. Now comes the weeping and
gnashing of teeth: for all is lost!

_Cr_. Lost! Ah God! My treasure-heaps--

_Mid_. My gold--

_Sar_. My little comforts--

_Me_. That's right: stick to it! You do the whining, and I'll chime in
with a string of GNOTHI-SAUTONS, best of accompaniments.

F.




III

_Menippus. Amphilochus. Trophonius_


_Me_. Now I wonder how it is that you two dead men have been honoured
with temples and taken for prophets; those silly mortals imagine you
are Gods.

_Amp_. How can we help it, if they are fools enough to have such
fancies about the dead?

_Me_. Ah, they would never have had them, though, if you had not been
charlatans in your lifetime, and pretended to know the future and be
able to foretell it to your clients.

_Tro_. Well, Menippus, Amphilochus can take his own line, if he likes;
as for me, I _am_ a Hero, and _do_ give oracles to any one who comes
down to me. It is pretty clear you were never at Lebadea, or you would
not be so incredulous.

_Me_. What do you mean? I must go to Lebadea, swaddle myself up in
absurd linen, take a cake in my hand, and crawl through a narrow
passage into a cave, before I could tell that you are a dead man, with
nothing but knavery to differentiate you from the rest of us? Now, on
your seer-ship, what _is_ a Hero? I am sure _I_ don't know.

_Tro_. He is half God, and half man.

_Me_. So what is neither man (as you imply) nor God, is both at once?
Well, at present what has become of your diviner half?

_Tro_. He gives oracles in Boeotia.

_Me_. What you may mean is quite beyond me; the one thing I know for
certain is that you are dead--the whole of you.

H.




IV

_Hermes. Charon_


_Her_. Ferryman, what do you say to settling up accounts? It will
prevent any unpleasantness later on.

_Ch_. Very good. It does save trouble to get these things
straight.

_Her_. One anchor, to your order, five shillings.

_Ch_. That is a lot of money.

_Her_. So help me Pluto, it is what I had to pay. One rowlock-strap,
fourpence.

_Ch_. Five and four; put that down.

_Her_. Then there was a needle, for mending the sail; ten-pence.

_Ch_. Down with it.

_Her_. Caulking-wax; nails; and cord for the brace. Two shillings the
lot.

_Ch_. They were worth the money.

_Her_. That's all; unless I have forgotten anything. When will you pay
it?

_Ch_. I can't just now, Hermes; we shall have a war or a plague
presently, and then the passengers will come shoaling in, and I shall
be able to make a little by jobbing the fares.

_Her_. So for the present I have nothing to do but sit down, and pray
for the worst, as my only chance of getting paid?

_Ch_. There is nothing else for it;--very little business doing just
now, as you see, owing to the peace.

_Her_. That is just as well, though it does keep me waiting for my
money. After all, though, Charon, in old days men were men; you
remember the state they used to come down in,--all blood and wounds
generally. Nowadays, a man is poisoned by his slave or his wife; or
gets dropsy from overfeeding; a pale, spiritless lot, nothing like the
men of old. Most of them seem to meet their end in some plot that has
money for its object.

_Ch_. Ah; money is in great request.

_Her_. Yes; you can't blame me if I am somewhat urgent for payment.

F.




V

_Pluto. Hermes_


_Pl_. You know that old, old fellow, Eucrates the millionaire--no
children, but a few thousand would-be heirs?

_Her_. Yes--lives at Sicyon. Well?

_Pl_. Well, Hermes, he is ninety now; let him live as much longer,
please; I should like it to be more still, if possible; and bring me
down his toadies one by one, that young Charinus, Damon, and the rest
of them.

_Her_. It would seem so strange, wouldn't it?

_Pl_. On the contrary, it would be ideal justice. What business have
they to pray for his death, or pretend to his money? they are no
relations. The most abominable thing about it is that they vary these
prayers with every public attention; when he is ill, every one knows
what they are after, and yet they vow offerings if he recovers; talk
of versatility! So let him be immortal, and bring them away before him
with their mouths still open for the fruit that never drops.

_Her_. Well, they _are_ rascals, and it would be a comic ending. He
leads them a pretty life too, on hope gruel; he always looks more dead
than alive, but he is tougher than a young man. They have divided up
the inheritance among them, and feed on imaginary bliss.

_Pl_. Just so; now he is to throw off his years like Iolaus, and
rejuvenate, while they in the middle of their hopes find themselves
here with their dream-wealth left behind them. Nothing like making the
punishment fit the crime.

_Her_. Say no more, Pluto; I will fetch you them one after another;
seven of them, is it?

_Pl_. Down with them; and he shall change from an old man to a
blooming youth, and attend their funerals.

H.




VI

_Terpsion. Pluto_


_Ter_. Now is this fair, Pluto,--that I should die at the age of
thirty, and that old Thucritus go on living past ninety?

_Pl_. Nothing could be fairer. Thucritus lives and is in no hurry for
his neighbours to die; whereas you always had some design against him;
you were waiting to step into his shoes.

_Ter_. Well, an old man like that is past getting any enjoyment out of
his money; he ought to die, and make room for younger men.

_Pl_. This is a novel principle: the man who can no longer derive
pleasure from his money is to die! --Fate and Nature have ordered it
otherwise.

_Ter_. Then they have ordered it wrongly. There ought to be a proper
sequence according to seniority. Things are turned upside down, if an
old man is to go on living with only three teeth in his head, half
blind, tottering about with a pair of slaves on each side to hold him
up, drivelling and rheumy-eyed, having no joy of life, a living tomb,
the derision of his juniors,--and young men are to die in the prime of
their strength and beauty. 'Tis contrary to nature. At any rate the
young men have a right to know when the old are going to die, so that
they may not throw away their attentions on them for nothing, as is
sometimes the case. The present arrangement is a putting of the cart
before the horse.

_Pl_. There is a great deal more sound sense in it than you suppose,
Terpsion. Besides, what right have you young fellows got to be prying
after other men's goods, and thrusting yourselves upon your childless
elders? You look rather foolish, when you get buried first; it tickles
people immensely; the more fervent your prayers for the death of your
aged friend, the greater is the general exultation when you precede
him. It has become quite a profession lately, this amorous devotion to
old men and women,--childless, of course; children destroy the
illusion. By the way though, some of the beloved objects see through
your dirty motives well enough by now; they have children, but they
pretend to hate them, and so have lovers all the same. When their
wills come to be read, their faithful bodyguard is not included:
nature asserts itself, the children get their rights, and the lovers
realize, with gnashings of teeth, that they have been taken in.

_Ter_. Too true! The luxuries that Thucritus has enjoyed at my
expense! He always looked as if he were at the point of death. I never
went to see him, but he would groan and squeak like a chicken barely
out of the shell: I considered that he might step into his coffin at
any moment, and heaped gift upon gift, for fear of being outdone in
generosity by my rivals; I passed anxious, sleepless nights, reckoning
and arranging all; 'twas this, the sleeplessness and the anxiety, that
brought me to my death. And he swallows my bait whole, and attends my
funeral chuckling.

_Pl_. Well done, Thucritus! Long may you live to enjoy your wealth,--
and your joke at the youngsters' expense; many a toady may you send
hither before your own time comes!

_Ter_. Now I think of it, it _would_ be a satisfaction if Charoeades
were to die before him.

_Pl_. Charoeades! My dear Terpsion, Phido, Melanthus,--every one of
them will be here before Thucritus,--all victims of this same anxiety!

_Ter_. That is as it should be. Hold on, Thucritus!

F.




VII

_Zenophantus. Callidemides_


_Ze_. Ah, Callidemides, and how did _you_ come by your end? As for me,
I was free of Dinias's table, and there died of a surfeit; but that is
stale news; you were there, of course.

_Cal_. Yes, I was. Now there was an element of surprise about _my_
fate. I suppose you know that old Ptoeodorus?

_Ze_. The rich man with no children, to whom you gave most of your
company?

_Cal_. That is the man; he had promised to leave me his heir, and I
used to show my appreciation. However, it went on such a time;
Tithonus was a juvenile to him; so I found a short cut to my property.
I bought a potion, and agreed with the butler that next time his
master called for wine (he is a pretty stiff drinker) he should have
this ready in a cup and present it; and I was pledged to reward the
man with his freedom.

_Ze_. And what happened? this is interesting.

_Cal_. When we came from bath, the young fellow had two cups ready,
one with the poison for Ptoeodorus, and the other for me; but by some
blunder he handed me the poisoned cup, and Ptoeodorus the plain; and
behold, before he had done drinking, there was I sprawling on the
ground, a vicarious corpse! Why are you laughing so, Zenophantus?