No More Learning

22 Homer, Iliad, i. 591.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 89
23 As no honors were decreed him.
24 Virgil, JEneid, vi. 126 : " facilis descensus Averni. "
25 Odes, ii. 18, 84.
26 The song of the priests of Apis when a new calf was found to
worship.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. By AULUS GELLIUS.
(Translated for this work. )
[Aulus Gellitts was born probably about a. d. 120, and died about 180. He was a man both of letters and affairs, and held high office at Rome. His one extant work is the "Attic Nights," a collection of scraps from his commonplace book, on a vast number of things heard, seen, or read. ]
Against those who call themselves Chaldaeans or genethliacs [natal-timers], and profess to be able from the motions and positions of the stars to tell what will happen in the future, we
once heard the philosopher Favorinus of Rome make an excel lent and luminous speech in Greek ; but whether to find him self employment, or display his genius, or because he wished to give a serious and judicial estimate of them, is not for me to say. But the leading instances and arguments he used which I could remember, brought away from my hearing of him there, I hastily noted down. They were approximately to this effect : —
That the doctrine of the Chaldaeans is not of as great antiq uity as they wish it to appear ; nor are those the chiefs and authors of it whom they pretend ; but that the crew who have fabricated these illusions and conjurings are professional money- hunting jugglers, seeking victuals and cash by lying tricks ; and because they have seen that certain terrestrial things, situate among mankind, move in accordance with the humor and lead ing of celestial things, — for instance, that the ocean, as if a companion of the moon, grows old and young at the same time with her, — they set this up as an argument that we should believe all human affairs, great and small, similarly bound up with the stars and heavens, led and ruled by them.
40 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
But this is in the highest degree inept and absurd ; that because the tide follows the course of the moon, the business likewise of anybody who has, say, a case before a judge involv ing the control of water with comarchers, or of a party wall with a neighbor, — that we must consider that business also as if it were governed by some cable from heaven tied to it. That even if by some divine power and reason it could be done, he considered it by no means possible for the mind of man to comprehend and perceive it in so short and scanty a space of life, however much it can do, though a few of certain things can be guessed — I will use the word itself — irayyfi&pka-rtpov [clumsily], conceived on no basis of science, but confused and vague and arbitrary, so far is the penetration of our eyes from piercing the middle spaces of vapor. For the chief difference between gods and men would be removed if men also were to know everything which is to come later.
Then the observation itself of the heavens and stars, which they profess to be the origin of their science, he thinks by no means clearly established ; for if the chiefs of the Chaldaeans, who dwelt in the open fields, contemplating the motions and paths and discessions and conjunctions of the stars, had observed that something was effected by them, this science, he says, clearly might make way ; but only under that aspect of the sky under which the Chaldaeans were ; for it is not possible, he says, that the calculations from the Chaldaean observations should remain valid, if any one should wish to use it thus under different regions of the sky. For who does not see, he says, how great is the diversity of the parts and circles of the sky from the divergency and convexity of the earth ? Therefore, the same stars by which they contend that all divine and human things are borne on and led, do not for instance everywhere excite cold or heat alike ; but change and vary, and at the same time in some places actuate placid seasons, in others stormy : why should they not also actuate one set of personal and pub lic happenings in Chaldaea, another in Gaetulia, another on the Danube, another on the Nile ? On the other hand, he says, it does not follow that if the same body and constitution of such a deep atmosphere should not remain the same under one and another curvature of the sky, yet in the affairs of men those stars must be thought always to show the same, from whatever land you contemplated them.
Moreover, it was wonderful that anybody should hold it proved that those stars which they declare were observed by
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 41
the Chaldaeans and Babylonians and Egyptians (which many call erratic, Nigidius wandering') [comets] should not be more numerous than is currently said ; for he considered it possible that there were also other planets with equal power, without which correct and steady observation could not be carried on, yet men could not discern them on account of their superiority either in brightness or altitude. For some other stars, he said, are seen from other countries, and are known by the people of those countries; but these very ones do not appear from all the rest of the earth, and are everywhere unknown by others ; and as only just so many of these stars, he says, and from one part of the earth, must needs be observed, what finally was the limit of that observation, and what time can we know to be enough for perceiving what the conjunction of the stars, or their motion around or across each other's paths, may presage ? For if an observation has been commenced, in such manner that it shall be noted in what guise, in what form, and in what position of the stars any one is born, and then successively from the beginning of life his fortune and habits and talents, and the circumstances of his private affairs and his business, and finally the very close of his life, shall be anticipated, and all these things, as they have come about in experience, shall be committed to writing ; and a long time afterward, when those very things shall be in that same place and in that same guise, it shall be assumed that the same things also will happen to the rest who may be born at that time, — if in that way, he says, observation has begun, and from that observation a certain science has been constructed that cannot by any means make way ; for let them tell us in how many years, or rather in how many ages of the earth, these observations could be perfected ? [by the same order of the heavenly bodies returning]. He said it was agreed among astrologers that the stars which they call wandering, which seem indicative of every one's fate, return only after an almost infinite and countless number of years to the same place whence in the same guise they all set out at once ; that no course of observation, nor any memory or form of record, could endure for such a period.
And he thought this also must be taken into account in some way, that there would be one train of stars when a man was first conceived in his mother's womb, and another later when after ten months he was brought to the light. And he asked how a diverse indication could come to the same thing, as those people say, another and another situation and connection
if,
42 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
of stars give other and other fortunes. But also at the time of nuptials, by which children are sought, and also at the coition itself of male and female, he said it must be evident that from a certain fixed and necessary order of the stars such and such persons and with such fortunes must be born ; and also long before when the father and mother themselves were born, the geniture from them could then be foreseen, —whoever of old were still to be, whom they were to beget, and so farther and farther back to infinity. So that if that science were framed on any basis of truth, back as far as the hundredth century, or still more, to the first beginning of the heavens and the earth, and then successively with continuous indication — as many progenitors of the same race as were born, those stars must foreshow that such and with such fate must be in the future whoever is born to-day.
But how, he says, can any one believe that by the form and position of any star whatever one man's chance and fortune are altogether fixed and destined, and that that form, after an immense number of ages, is restored, unless the signs of the life and fortunes of the same man, in such short intervals, through the ranks of his ancestors one by one, and through an infinite order of successions, themselves are denoted by the same ap pearance of the stars ? That if such can be, and if that diver sity and variety is admitted through every step of antiquity, to point out the beginnings of those men who shall afterward be born, this inequality disturbs observation, and every reason ing of the science is confounded.
Now he thought it was really not in the least assertable that not only extrinsic happenings and events which take place, but even the counsels and decisions of men themselves, and the various wills and longings and aversions, and the casual and unforeseen impulses and recoils of the mind in the lightest things, they should hold to be actuated and excited from the heavens above ; as, if you should happen to desire to go to the baths, and then did not desire to, and again desired to, it should happen not from some irregular and haphazard stir of the spirit, but by some necessary reciprocation of the wander ing stars ; that men in that case would plainly seem not to be what are called Xoyiicd fiua (rational beings), but ridiculous and to be jeered at, a sort of vevpocriracrra (puppets), if they do nothing of their own will, nothing by their own judgment, but with the stars leading and making carriage horses of them.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 43
And he says, could be positively predicted for King Pyrrhus whether M. Curius was to be vanquished in battle, why pray do they not dare also to say with dice, or pebbles, or the tray, who of the players shall win Do they know great things and not know small things, and are the lesser things less knowable than the greater But they vindicate them selves by the greatness of things, and say the great are clearer and can be more easily comprehended, wish, he says, they would answer me as to what, in this contemplation of the whole world, in the works of mighty nature, they think great in such brief and petty affairs as those of mankind And wish also, he says, that they would answer me this so small and fleeting the moment of time in which person at con ception receives his fate, whether in that same point under that same circle of the heaven many must not needs be born at once in the same conjunction therefore twins are not in the same fortune of life because not brought forth at the same point of time urge, he says, that they answer that course of time flying past, which can hardly be comprehended by the cogita tion of the mind — by what sort of method or expedient can they apprehend it, or ascertain or discover to themselves, when in such headlong dizzying whirl of days and nights they say the least changes make huge mutations
Finally he asked what there was to be said in answer to this that while people of both sexes and all ages are brought to life under diverse motions of the stars, the regions far apart under which they are born, yet all those who perish either in yawnings of the earth, or tumblings of houses, or stormings of towns, or drownings in the waves in the same ship, die by the same sort of death, at the same stroke of time in the universe all at once. Now, he says, this never could happen the moments of birth allotted to separate individuals had each the same laws. But
he says, they allege that in the death and life of men, even brought forth at diverse times, some like and harmonious things can befall by certain like conjunctions of the stars at later times, why does not everything come out alike at last, so that there may exist, through such concourses of the stars, the similitudes both of Socrates and Antisthenes at once, and many Platos, alike in race, form, talent, habits, in all life and death which in short, he says, cannot by any means be so. This argument, therefore, cannot well be used against the unlike births of men and their like deaths.
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:
if ?
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44 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
But, he said, this would present itself to them, even though he should not inquire into it : if of the life and death of men, and of all human things, there was season and reason and cause in heaven and among the stars, what did they say of flies or worms or hedgehogs, and many other very small things animat ing the earth and sea ? whether those also were born under the same laws as men, and extinguished under the same ; whether also the fates of birth for frogs and gnats were attributed to the motions of the heavenly bodies ; or if they did not think that, no reason was apparent why the same power of the stars should be operative for men and lacking for the rest.
Favorinus likewise admonished us to beware lest those parasites should creep on toward making converts, because some of them seemed from time to time to babble or inter sperse truths. For they do not tell understood things, he says, nor defined nor perceived ones ; but glittering with slippery and roundabout guesswork, they walk step by step among falsehoods and truths, as if marching through shad ows. Either, while handling many subjects they suddenly and imprudently tumble into the truth ; or while great credulity leads on those who consult them, they shrewdly arrive at conclusions which are true : for that reason they seem to copy truth more easily in past matters than future. Yet all the things about which they either rashly or skillfully tell the truth, he says, are not a thousandth part of the ones in which they lie.
The same Favorinus, wishing to deter and repel the youth from those genethliacs and others of the sort, from going to and consulting in any way that tribe who profess to tell the future by magic arts, concluded with these arguments : Either they foretell adverse fortunes, he said, or prosperous. If they fore tell prosperous ones and deceive, you will be wretched from mistaken expectation. If they foretell adverse ones and lie, you will be wretched from mistaken fear. But if they answer truly — in case affairs are not prosperous, then you will be wretched through your mind, before being so through fate ; if they promise happiness and it so befalls, then obviously there will be two undesirable results : expectation will weary you with hope deferred, and hope will have robbed you of the fruit of joy to come. Therefore, future events should not in any way be given to human forecast.
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 45
AN ANCIENT GULLIVEK. By LUCIAN.
[LnciAN, one of the foremost humorists and men of letters of all time, was born in Asia Minor during Trajan's reign, about a. t>. 100. He studied for a sculptor, but finally went to Antioch and devoted himself to literature and ora tory. He died in extreme old age. His works, written in Greek, are largely satirical burlesques on pagan philosophy and mythology and on the literature of his day, with some stories. ]
Ctesias wrote an account of India, in which he records matters which he neither saw himself, nor heard from the mouth of any creature in the world. So likewise a certain Jambulus wrote many incredible wonders of the great sea, that are too palpably untrue for any one to suppose they are not of his own invention, though they are very entertaining to read. Many others have in the same spirit written pretended voyages and occasional peregrinations in unknown regions, wherein they give us incredible accounts of prodigiously huge animals, wild men, and strange and uncouth manners and habits of life. Their great leader and master in this fantastical way of im posing upon people was the famous Homeric Ulysses, who tells a long tale to Alcinous and his silly Phaeacians about King . rfEolus and the winds, who are his slaves, and about one-eyed men-eaters and other the like savages ; talks of many-headed beasts, of the transformation of his companions into brutes, and a number of other fooleries of a like nature. For my part I was the less displeased at all the falsehoods, great and numerous as they were, of these honest folks, when I saw that even men who pretend that they only philosophize, act not a hair better ; but this has always excited my wonder, how they could im agine their readers would fail of perceiving that there was not a word of truth in all their narratives.
Now, as I cannot resist the vanity of transmitting to pos terity a little work of my own composing, and though I have nothing true to relate (for nothing memorable has happened to me in all my life), I see not why I have not as good a right to deal in fiction as another :
honester mode of lying than the generality of my compeers : for I tell at least one truth, by saying that I lie ; and the more confidently hope therefore to escape the general censure,
I resolved, however, to adopt an since my own voluntary confession is a sufficient proof that I
46 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
desire to impose upon no one. Accordingly I hereby declare, that I sit down to relate what never befell me ; what I neither saw myself, nor heard by report from others ; aye, what is more, about matters that not only are not, but never will be, because in one word they are absolutely impossible, and to which there fore I warn my readers (if by the bye I should have any) not to give even the smallest degree of credit.
Once on a time, then, I set sail from Cadiz, and steered my course with a fair wind to the Hesperian ocean ; taking along fifty companions and a most experienced pilot.
We sailed a day and a night with favorable gales, and while still within sight of land, were not violently carried on ; on the following day at sunrise, however, the wind blew fresher, the sea ran high, the sky lowered, and it was impossible even to take in the sails. We were therefore forced to resign ourselves to the wind, and were nine and seventy days driven about by the storm. On the eightieth, however, at daybreak, we de scried a high and woody island not far off, against which, the gale having greatly abated, the breakers were not uncommonly furious. We landed therefore, got out, and, happy after sus taining so many troubles to feel the solid earth under us, we stretched ourselves at ease upon the ground. At length, after having rested for some time, we arose, and selected thirty of our company to stay by the ship, while the remaining thirty accompanied me in penetrating farther inland, to examine into the quality of the island.
When we had proceeded about two thousand paces from the shore through the forest, we came up to a pillar of brass, on which in Greek letters, half effaced and consumed by rust, this inscription was legible : Thus far came Bacchus and Her cules. We also discovered, at no great distance from it, two footmarks in the rock, one of which measured a whole acre, but the other was apparently somewhat smaller. I conjectured the lesser one to be that of Bacchus, and the other that of Hercules. We bowed the knee, and went on, but had not proceeded far when we came to a river, that instead of water ran with wine, which both in color and flavor appeared to us like our Chian wine. The river was so broad and deep, that in many places it was even navigable. Such an evident sign that Bacchus had once been here served not a little to confirm our faith in the inscription on the pillar. But being curious to learn whence
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 47
this stream derived its origin, we went up to its head ; but found no spring, and only a quantity of large vines hung full of clusters, and at the bottom of every stem the wine trickled down in bright transparent drops, from the confluence whereof the stream arose. We saw likewise a vast quantity of fishes therein, the flesh of which had both the color and flavor of the wine in which they lived. We caught some, and so greedily swallowed them down, that as many as ate of them were com pletely drunk ; and on cutting up the fishes we found them to be full of lees. It occurred to us afterwards to mix these wine fishes with water fishes, whereby they lost their strong vinous taste, and yielded an excellent dish.
We then crossed the river at a part where we found it ford- able, and came among a wonderful species of vines : which toward the earth had firm stocks, green and knotty ; but up wards they were ladies, having down to the waist their several proportions perfect and complete ; as Daphne is depicted, when she was turned into a tree in Apollo's embrace. Their fingers terminated in shoots, full of bunches of grapes, and instead of hair their heads were grown over with tendrils, leaves, and clusters. These ladies came up to us, amicably gave us their hands, and greeted us, some in Lydian, others in Indian lan guage, but most of them in Greek ; they saluted us also on the lips ; but those whom they kissed immediately became drunk, and reeled. Their fruit, however, they would not permit us to pluck, and screamed out with pain when we broke off a bunch. Some of them even showed an inclination to consort with us ; but a couple of my companions, in consenting to it, paid dear for their complaisance. For they got so entangled in their embraces, that they could never after be loosed ; but every limb coalesced and grew together with theirs, in such sort as to become one stock with roots in common. Their fin gers changed into vine twigs, and began to bud, giving promise of fruit.
Leaving them to their fate, we made what haste we could to our ship, where we related all that we had seen to our com rades, whom we had left behind, particularly the adventure of the two whose embraces with the vine women had turned out so badly. Hereupon we filled our empty casks partly with common water, partly from the wine stream ; and after having passed the night not far from the latter, weighed anchor in the morning with a moderate breeze. But about noon, when we
48 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
had lost sight of the island, we were suddenly caught by a whirlwind, which turned our vessel several times round in a circle with tremendous velocity, and lifted it above three thou sand stadia aloft in the air, not setting it down again on the sea, but kept it suspended above the water at that height, and carried us on, with swelled sails, above the clouds.
Having thus continued our course through the sky for the space of seven days and as many nights, on the eighth day we descried a sort of earth in the air, resembling a large, shining, circular island, spreading a remarkably brilliant light around it. We made up to it, anchored our ship, and went on shore, and on examination found it inhabited and cultivated. Indeed, by day we could distinguish nothing : but as soon as the night came on, we discerned other islands in the vicinity, some bigger, some less, and all of a fiery color. There was also, very deep below these, another earth, having on it cities and rivers and lakes and forests and mountains ; whence we con cluded that it might probably be ours.
Having resolved on prosecuting our journey, we came up with a number of horse vultures or hippogypes, as they are called in this country, who immediately seized our persons. These hippogypes are men who ride upon huge vultures, and are as well skilled in managing them as we are in the use of horses. But the vultures are of a prodigious bulk, and for the most part have three heads ; and how large they must be, may be judged of by this, that each of the feathers in their wings is longer and thicker than the mast of a great corn ship. The hippogypes are commissioned to fly round the whole island, and whenever they meet a stranger, to carry him before the king ; with which order we were therefore obliged to comply. The king no sooner spied us, than he understood, I suppose from our dress, what countrymen we were ; for the first word he said to us was, "The gentlemen then are Greeks. " On our not scrupling to own it, he continued, " How got you hither, through such a vast tract of air as that lying between your earth and this ? " We then told him all that had happened to us. Upon this he was pleased to communicate to us some par ticulars of his history. He told us : he was likewise a man, and the same Endymion who was long since, while he lay asleep, rapt up from our earth and conveyed hither, where he was appointed king, and is the same that appears to us below as the moon. Moreover, he bade us be of good cheer and appre
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
49
hend no danger ; assuring us at the same that we should be provided with all necessaries : " and," added he, " when I shall have successfully put a period to the war in which I am at present engaged with the inhabitants of the sun, you shall pass with me the happiest lives you can possibly conceive. " On our asking him what enemies he had, and how the misunderstand ing began, he replied : —
" It is now a long time, that Phaeton, the king of the solar inhabitants (for the sun is no less peopled than the moon), has been at war with us, for no other reason than this. I had taken the resolution to send out the poorest people of my dominions as a colony into the morning star, which at that time was waste and void of inhabitants. To this now, Phaeton, out of envy, would not consent, and opposed my colonists with a troop of horse pismires in midway. Being unprepared for the encounter, and therefore not provided with arms, we were for that time forced to retreat. I have now, however, resolved to have another contest with them, and to settle my colony there, cost what it will. If you therefore have a mind to take part in this enterprise, I will furnish you with vultures out of my own mews, and provide you with the necessary arms and accouterments ; and to-morrow we will begin our march. "
"With all my heart," I replied, " whenever you please. "
The king that evening made us sit down to an entertain ment ; and on the following morning early we made the necessary preparations, and drew up in battle array, our scouts having apprised us that the enemy was approaching. Our army consisted, besides the light infantry, the foreign auxilia ries, the engineers and sutlers, of a hundred thousand men : that is to say, eighty thousand horse vultures, and twenty thousand who were mounted on cabbage fowl. These are an exceedingly numerous species of birds, that instead of feathers are thickly grown over with cabbages, and have a broad kind of lettuce leaves for wings. Our flanks were composed of bean shooters and garlic throwers. In addition to these, thirty thousand flea guards and fifty thousand wind coursers were sent to our aid from the bean star. The former are archers mounted on a kind of fleas which are twelve times as big as an elephant ; but the wind coursers, though they fight on foot, yet run without wings in the air. This is performed in the follow ing manner : they wear wide, long gowns, reaching down to the
ankles ; these they tuck up so as to hold the wind, like a sail, VOL. VII. 4
50 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
and thus they are wafted through the air after the manner of ships. In battle they are generally used like our peltasts. It was currently reported that seventy thousand sparrow acorns and five thousand horse cranes were to be sent us from the stars over Cappadocia ; but I must own that I did not see them, and for this plain reason, that they never came. I therefore shall not take upon me to describe them ; for all sorts of amazing and incredible things were propagated about them.
Such were the forces of Endymion. Their arms and accou- terments were all alike. Their helmets were of bean shells, the beans with them being excessively large and thick-shelled. Their scaly coats of mail were made of the husks of their lupines sewed together, for in that country the shell of the lupine is as hard and impenetrable as horn. Their shields and swords differ not from those of the Greeks.
Everything now being ready, the troops disposed themselves in the following order of battle : the horse vultures composed the right wing, and were led on by the king in person, sur rounded by a number of picked men, amongst whom we also were ranged ; the left wing consisted of the cabbage fowl, and in the center were placed the auxiliaries, severally classed. The foot soldiery amounted to about sixty millions. There is a species of spiders in the moon, the smallest of which is bigger than one of the islands of the Cyclades. These received orders to fill up the whole tract of air between the moon and morning star with a web. This was done in a few instants, and served
as a floor for the foot soldiers to form themselves in order of battle upon ; these were commanded by Nightbird, Fairweath- er's son, and two other generals.
On the left wing of the enemy stood the horse pismires, headed by Phaeton. These animals are a species of winged ants, differing from ours only in bulk, the largest of them covering no less than two acres. They have besides one pecul iarity, that they assist their riders in fighting principally with their horns. Their number was given in at about fifty thousand. On the right wing in the first engagement somewhere about fifty thousand gnat riders were posted, all archers, mounted on monstrous huge gnats. Behind these stood the radish darters, a sort of light infantry, but who greatly annoyed the enemy : being armed with slings from which they threw horrid large radishes to a very great distance ; whoever was struck by them died on the spot, and the wound instantly gave out an intoler
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 61
able stench, for it is said that they dipped the radishes in mallow poison. Behind them stood the stalky mushrooms, heavy-armed infantry, ten thousand in number, having their name from their bearing a kind of fungus for their shield, and using stalks of large asparagus for spears. Not far from these were placed the dog acorns, who were sent to succor Phaeton from the inhabitants of Sirius, in number five thousand. They were men with dogs' heads, who fought on winged acorns, which served them as chariots. Besides, there went a report that several other reinforcements were to have come, on which Phaeton had reckoned, particularly the slingers that were ex pected from the Milky Way, together with the cloud centaurs. The latter, however, did not arrive till after the affair was decided, and it had been as well for us if they had stayed away ; the slingers, however, came not at all, at which Phaeton was so enraged that he afterwards laid waste their country by fire. These then were all the forces that Phaeton brought into the field.
The signal for the onset was now given on both sides by asses, which in this country are employed instead of trumpeters : and the engagement had no sooner begun, than the left wing of the Heliotans, without waiting for the attack of the horse vultures, turned their backs immediately ; and we pursued them with great slaughter. On the other hand, their right wing at first gained the advantage over our left, and the gnat riders over threw our cabbage fowl with such force, and pursued them with so much fury, that they advanced even to our footmen ; who, however, stood their ground so bravely that the enemy were in their turn thrown into disorder and obliged to fly, especially when they saw that their left wing was routed. Their defeat was now decisive ; we made a great many prisoners, and the slain were so numerous that the clouds were tinged with the blood that was spilt, as they sometimes appear to us at the going down of the sun ; aye, it even trickled down from them upon the earth. So that I was led to suppose that a similar event in former times, in the upper regions, might perhaps have caused those showers of blood which Homer makes his Jupiter rain for Sarpedon's death.
Returning from the pursuit of the enemy, we erected two trophies ; one for the infantry on the cobweb, the other on the clouds for those who had fought in the air. While we were thus employed, intelligence was brought us from our fore posts
52 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
that the cloud centaurs were now coming up, which ought to have joined Phaeton before the battle. I must own, that the march towards us of an army of cavalry that were half men and half winged horses, and of whom the human half was as big as the upper moiety of the colossus at Rhodes, and the equine half resembling a great ship of burden, formed a spectacle altogether extraordinary. Their number I rather decline to state, for it was so prodigious that I am fearful I should not be believed. They were led on by Sagittarius from the Zodiac. As soon as they learnt that their friends had been defeated, they sent immediately a dispatch to Phaeton, to call him back to the fight ; whilst they marched up in good array to the terrified Selenites, who had fallen into great disorder in pursuing the enemy and dividing the spoil, put them all to flight, pursued the king himself to the very walls of his capital, killed the greater part of his birds, threw down the trophies, overran the whole field of cobweb, and together with the rest made me and my two com panions prisoners of war. Phaeton at length came up ; and after they had erected other trophies, that same day we were carried prisoners into the sun, our hands tied behind our backs with a cord of the cobweb.
The enemy did not think fit to besiege Endymion's capital, but contented himself with carrying up a double rampart of clouds between the moon and the sun, whereby all communi cation between the two was effectually cut off, and the moon deprived of all sunlight. The poor moon, therefore, from that instant suffered a total eclipse, and was shrouded in complete uninterrupted darkness. In this distress, Endymion had no other resource than to send a deputation to the sun, humbly to entreat him to demolish the wall, and that he would not be so unmerciful as to doom him to utter darkness ; binding himself to pay a tribute to the sun, to assist him with auxiliaries when ever he should be at war, never more to act with hostility against him, and to give hostages as surety for the due performance of the contract. Phaeton held two councils to deliberate on these proposals : in the first, their minds were as yet too soured to admit of a favorable reception ; but in the second, their anger had somewhat subsided, and the peace was concluded by a treaty which ran thus : —
The Heliotans with their allies on the one part, and the Sele nites with their confederates on the other part, have entered into a
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 53
league, in which it is stipulated as follows : The Heliotans engage to demolish the wall, never more to make hostile attacks upon the moon, and that the prisoners taken on both sides shall be set at lib erty on the payment of an equitable ransom. The Selenites on their part promise not to infringe the rights and privileges of the other stars, nor ever again to make war upon the Heliotans ; but on the contrary, the two powers shall mutually aid and assist one another with their forces, in case of any invasion. The king of the Selenites also binds himself to pay to the king of the Heliotans a yearly tribute of ten thousand casks of dew, and give ten thousand hostages by way of security. With reference to the colony in the morning star, both the contracting parties shall jointly assist in establishing and lib erty given to any that will to share in the peopling of it. This treaty shall be engraved on pillar of amber, to be set up between the confines of the two kingdoms. To the due performance of this treaty are solemnly sworn, on the part of the
Heliotes.
Fireman. Summerheat. Flamington.
Selenites.
Nightlove. Moonius. Changelight.
This treaty of peace being signed, the wall was pulled down, and the prisoners were exchanged.
On our return to the moon, our comrades and Endymion himself came forth to meet us, and embraced us with weeping eyes. The prince would fain have retained us with him making us the proposal at the same time to form part of the new colony, as we liked best. He even offered me his own son for mate (for they have no women
*******
This could by no means be persuaded to, but ear nestly begged that he would set us down upon the sea. Finding that could not be prevailed on to stay, he consented to dis miss us, after he had feasted us most nobly during whole week.
there).
When Selenite grown old, he does not die as we do, but vanishes like smoke in the air.
The whole nation eats the same sort of food. They roast frogs (which with them fly about the air in vast numbers) on coals; then when they are done enough, seating themselves round the hearth, as we do at table, snuff up the effluvia that rises from them, and in this consists their whole meal. When thirsty, they squeeze the air into goblet, which filled in this manner with dewlike moisture. . .
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54 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
Whoever would pass for a beauty among them must be bald and without hair ; curly and bushy heads are an abomina tion to them. But in the comets it is just the reverse : for there only curly hair is esteemed beautiful, as some travelers, who were well received in those stars, informed us. Neverthe less they have somewhat of a beard a little above the knee. On their feet they have neither nails nor toes ; for the whole foot is entirely one piece. Every one of them at the point of the rump has a large cabbage growing, in lieu of a tail, always green and flourishing, and which never breaks off though a man falls on his back.
They sneeze a very sour kind of honey ; and when they are at work or gymnastic exercises, or use any exertion, milk oozes from all the pores of the body in such quantities that they make cheese of it, only mixing with it a little of the said honey.
They have an art of extracting an oil from onions, which is very white, and of so fragrant an odor that they use it for per fuming. Moreover, their soil produces a great abundance of vines, which instead of wine yield water grapes, and the grape- stones are the size of our hail. I know not how better to explain the hail with us, than by saying that it hails on the earth whenever the vines in the moon are violently agitated by a high wind, so as to burst the water grapes.
The Selenites wear no pockets, but put all they would carry with them in their bellies, which they can open and shut at
For by nature they are quite empty, having no intestines ; only they are rough and hairy within, so that even their new-born children, when they are cold, creep into them.
pleasure.
As to their clothing, the rich wear garments of glass, but those of the poorer sort are wove of brass ; for these regions are very prolific in ores, and they work it as we do wool, by pouring water upon it.
But what sort of eyes they have, I doubt my veracity would be suspected were I to say ; it is so incredible. Yet, having already related so much of the marvelous, this may as well go along with the rest. They have eyes, then, that they can take out whenever they choose : whoever therefore would save his eyes, takes them out, and lays them by ; if anything that he would fain see presents itself, he puts his eyes in again and looks at it. Some who have carelessly lost their own borrow of others ; for rich people are always provided with a good stock.
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
55
Their ears are made of plane-tree leaves, and only the Dendrites have wooden ones.
I saw also another strange object in the king's palace ; which was a looking-glass of enormous dimensions, lying over a well not very deep. Whoever goes down into this well hears everything that is said upon our earth ; and whoever looks in the mirror sees in it all the cities and nations of the world, exactly as if they were standing before him. I saw on this occasion my family and my whole country : whether, however, they likewise saw me, I cannot positively say. He who does not believe what I have mentioned touching the virtues of this looking-glass, if he ever goes thither, may convince himself by his own eyes that I have said nothing but what is true.
We now took our leaves of the king and his court, repaired on board our ship, and departed. Endymion at parting made me a present of two glass and five brazen robes, together with a complete suit of armor made of bean shells ; all of which I was afterwards forced to leave behind in the whale's belly. He likewise sent with us a thousand hippogypes, to escort us five hundred stadia on our way.
After having in our course coasted along several countries, we landed on the morning star, which had lately been culti vated, to take in fresh water. Thence we steered into the Zodiac, sailing close by the sun on the left hand ; but here we did not go ashore, though my companions were very desirous to do so, because the wind was against us. We got near enough, however, to see that the landscape was covered with the most beautiful verdure, well watered, and richly endowed with all sorts of natural productions. The nephelocentaurs, who are mercenaries in the service of Phaeton, on seeing us fled on board our pinnace ; but on being informed that we were included in the treaty of peace, soon departed.
The hippogypes now likewise took leave of us, and all the next night and day, continuing our course, always bearing downwards, towards evening we arrived at a place called Lampton. This city is situated between the Pleiades and Hyades, and a little below the Zodiac. Here we landed, but saw no men ; instead of them, however, we beheld a vast con course of lamps, running to and fro along the streets, and busily employed in the market and the harbor. They were in general little, and had a poor appearance. Some few, we could per
ceive by their fine show and brightness, were the great and
56 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
powerful among them. Every one had its own lantern to live in, with their proper names as men have. We likewise heard them articulate a sort of speech. They offered us no injury, but rather seemed to receive us hospitably after their manner ; notwithstanding which, we could not get the better of our fears, and none of us would venture to eat or to sleep with them. In the middle of the city they have a kind of court house, where their chief magistrate sits all the night long, and calls every one by name to him ; and whoever does not answer is treated as a deserter, and punished by death, — that is, he is extinguished. We likewise heard, while standing by to see what passed, some of them make their several excuses, and the reasons they alleged for coming so late. On this occasion I recognized our own house lamp ; upon which I inquired of it how affairs went on at home, and it told me all that it knew.
Having resolved to stay there but one night, we weighed anchor the next morning, and sailed off from Lychnopolis, passing near the clouds, where we, among others, saw to our great astonishment the famous city of Nephelococcygia, but by reason of adverse winds could not enter the port. We learnt, however, that Coronos, Cottyphion's son, was reigning there ; and I for my own part was confirmed in the opinion that I have ever entertained of the wisdom and veracity of the poet Aris tophanes, whose account of that city has been unjustly discred ited. Three days afterwards we came again in sight of the great ocean ; but the earth showed itself nowhere, that floating in the air excepted, which appeared exceedingly fiery and spar kling. On the fourth day about noon, the wind, gently subsid ing, settled us fair and leisurely upon the sea.
It is impossible to describe the ravishment that seized us on feeling ourselves once more on the water. We gave the whole ship's crew a feast on the remainder of our provisions, and afterwards leaped into the water, and bathed to our heart's content ; for it was now a perfect calm, and the sea as smooth as a looking-glass.
Soon, however, we experienced that a sudden change for the better is not seldom the beginning of greater misfortunes. For scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many whales and other monsters of the deep appeared. Among the former, one was of a most enormous size, being not less than three hundred miles long. This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 67
beating the sea before him into a foam, and showing teeth much larger than our colossal phalli, sharp-pointed as needles and white as ivory. We therefore took our last leave of one another, and while we were thus in mutual embraces expecting him every moment, he came on and swallowed us up, ship and all, at one gulp ; for he found it unnecessary to crush us first with his teeth, but the vessel at one squeeze slipped between the interstices, and went down into his maw.
When we were in, it was at first so dark that we could dis cern nothing ; but when after some time he opened his chops, we saw ourselves in a cavity of such prodigious height and width that it seemed to have room enough for a city of ten thousand inhabitants. All about lay a vast quantity of small fishes, macerated animals, sails, anchors, men's bones, and whole cargoes. Farther in, probably from the quantity of mud this whale had swallowed, was an earth with mountains and valleys upon it ; the former being covered with all sorts of forest trees, and the valleys planted with different herbs and vegetables, so that one would have thought it had been cultivated. This island, if I may so term it, might perhaps be about forty-five miles in circumference. We saw likewise sundry species of sea fowl, gulls, halcyons, and others, that had made their nests upon the trees.
We now had leisure to contemplate our deplorable situation, and wept plentifully. At last when I had somewhat comforted the dejected spirits of my companions, our first business was to make the ship fast ; we then struck fire, and of the fishes, which lay in great quantities and variety about us, we prepared a good meal ; water we had on board, the remainder of what we took in at the morning star.
On getting up the next morning, we perceived that as often as the whale fetched breath, we one while saw mountains, at another nothing but the sky, sometimes likewise islands ; whence we then concluded that he moved about with great velocity, and seemed to visit every part of the ocean.
When we were grown a little familiar with our new place of abode, taking with me seven of my companions, we went into the forest to make farther discoveries. We had not proceeded above a furlong before we came to a temple, which, as the in scription ran, was dedicated to Neptune ; not far off we found a great number of tombs with pillars, and a little farther on, a spring of clear water. We also heard the barking of a dog,
58 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
and seeing smoke rise at some distance, we concluded that probably we might not be far from some dwelling. We now doubled our speed, and had not advanced many paces, when we met an old man and a youth very busy in cultivating a kitchen garden, and just then employed in conducting water into it by a furrow from the spring. At this sight, surprised at once both by joy and fear, we stood mute, and it may easily be im agined that they were possessed by the same apprehensions. They paused from their work, and for some time surveyed us attentively, without uttering a sound. At last the old man, taking courage, spoke to us : " Who are you," said he, " demons of the ocean, or miserable men like us ? For as to us, we are men, and from offspring of the earth, as we were, are become inmates of the sea, and are carried up and down with this monster in which we are inclosed, without rightly knowing what to think of ourselves ; for we have every reason to sup pose we are dead, though we believe that we are alive. " "We also, old father," I replied, " are men, who first found ourselves here a short time ago ; for this is but the third day since we were swallowed up, together with our ship : and it is purely the desire of exploring this forest, which appeared so vast and thick, that has brought us hither. But without doubt it was by the guidance of some good genius that we found you, and now know that we are not alone inclosed in this whale. Tell us, then, if I may be so bold, who you are, and how you came hither. " Whereupon the good old man assured us that he would not satisfy our curiosity, till he had first entertained us as well as he was able ; and saying this, he led us into his house, which he had fitted up conveniently. It was commo dious enough for his situation, and provided with pallets and other necessaries. Here, after setting before us legumes, fruits, fish, and wine, and when we had satisfied our appetites, he began to inquire into the accidents that had occurred to us , and I recounted to him everything in order, — the storm, and what befell us on the island, and our voyage in the air, and the war, and all the rest of to the moment of our submersion into the whale.
After having emphatically expressed to me his astonish ment at such wonderful occurrences, he then told us his own story. " My friends," said he, " am merchant of Cyprus. Business called me from home and with my son, whom you see here, and great number of servants, set out on voyage
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AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
59
to Italy, on board a ship freighted with various kinds of mer chandise, the scattered fragments of which you may probably have observed in the whale's gullet. We came as far as Sicily with a prosperous gale ; but there a contrary wind got up, which the third day drove us into the ocean, where we had the mis fortune to fall in with this whale, and to be swallowed up, crew and ship and all. All my people lost their lives, and we two alone remained. Having deposited them in the earth, we built a temple to Neptune, and here we have lived ever since, cultivating our little garden, and raising herbs, which with fish and fruits are our constant nourishment. The forest, which is of great extent, as you see, produces likewise abundance of vines, which yield a delicious wine ; and you may perhaps have seen that we have a spring of fresh and excellent water. We make our bed of leaves, have plenty of fuel, and catch birds in nets, and even live fish, when we get out upon the gills of the monster, where we bathe likewise whenever we have an in clination that way. Besides, not far from hence is a lake of salt water, twenty stadia in circumference, and abounding in fish of various kinds. In this lake we sometimes amuse ourselves with swimming, or in rowing about in a little boat of my own making. In this manner we have now spent seven and twenty years, since we were swallowed up by the whale. We should be contented and easy enough here if our neighbors, who are very unsociable and rude people, were not so troublesome to us. "
"What, then," I exclaimed, "are there any other people
beside us in this whale ? "
" A great many," returned the old man ; " but as
I said, untractable creatures, and of very grotesque shapes. The western part of the forest, towards the tail of the whale, is
inhabited by the Tarichanes, who have the eyes of an eel and the face of a crab, — a warlike, bold, and rude, carnivorous people. On the other side, to the right, the Tritonomensetes dwell, down to the waist resembling men, and below formed like weasels ; yet their disposition is not so mischievous and ferocious as that of the others. On the left hand reside the Carcinocheires and Thynnocephali, the former of whom instead of hands have crabs' claws, the latter have the head of a tunny fish ; these two tribes have entered into alliance, and make common cause in the war. The middle region is occupied by the Pagurades and Psettapodes, a couple of warlike races, who are particularly swift-footed. The eastern parts, next the
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AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
whale's jaws, being generally overwashed by the sea, are almost
I am therefore fain to take up my quarters here, on condition of paying the Psettapodes an annual tribute of five hundred oysters. Such is the internal division of this country ; and you may easily conceive that it is a matter of no small concern to us, how to defend ourselves against so many nations, and at least how to live among them. "
This proposal pleased our host. We therefore repaired to our ship, and made the necessary preparations. An occasion of war we could not be at a loss for. Our host had no more to do but refuse paying the tribute, the day appointed being near at hand ; and this was accordingly agreed on. They sent to demand the tribute. He sent them packing without their errand. At this the Psettapodes and Pagurades were so in censed that with great clamor they fell furiously upon the plantation of Skintharus, — for that was the name of our new friend. As this was no more than we had expected, they found us in a condition to receive them. I had sent out a detachment consisting of half my crew, five and twenty in number, with orders to lie in ambuscade, and when the enemy had passed, to attack him in the rear ; which they did with complete success. I then with the rest of my men, also five and twenty strong (for Skintharus and his son fought with us), marched forward to oppose them ; and when we had come to close quarters, we fought with such bravery and strength that after an obstinate struggle, not without danger on our part, they were at last beat out of the field, and pursued to their dens. Of the enemy were slain a hundred threescore and ten ; on our side we lost only one, — my pilot, who was run through the shoulder by the rib of a mullet.
That day, and the night after it, we lodged in our trenches, and erected the dry backbone of a dolphin as a trophy. But the rumor of this engagement having in the mean time gone abroad, we found the next morning a fresh enemy before us : the Tarichanes under the command of a certain Pelamus in the left wing, the Thynnocephali taking the right, and the Carkino- cheires occupying the center. For the Tritonomendetes, not
uninhabited ;
"Howmanymay youbeinall? "Iasked. —"Abovea thousand. " — "What arms do you wear? " — "None but fish bones. " — "We had best then attack them," said I, " seeing we are armed and they are not. If we once for all subdue them, we may afterwards live without disturbance. "
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 61
liking to have anything to do with either party, chose to remain neuter. We came up to the enemy close by the temple of Neptune, where, under so great a war cry that the whole whale rebellowed with it through its immense caverns, the armies rushed to combat. Our enemies, however, being not much better than naked and unarmed, were soon put to flight and chased into the heart of the forest, whereby we became masters of the country.
They sent heralds a little while after, to fetch away their dead and propose terms of accommodation ; which, so far from thinking proper to agree to, we marched in a body against them the very next day, and put them all to the sword, except the Tritonomendetes, who, seeing how it had fared with their fellows, ran away as fast as they could to the whale's gills, and cast themselves headlong into the sea.
We now scoured the country, and finding it cleared of all enemies, we have ever since lived agreeably together, passing our time in bodily exercises and hunting, tending our vines, gathering the fruits of the trees, and living, in one word, like people who make themselves very comfortable in a spacious prison which they cannot get out of. In this manner we spent a year and eight months.
On the fifteenth day of the ninth month, however, at the second opening of the whale's chops (for this he did once every hour, by which periodical gaping we computed the hours of the day), we heard a great cry, and a noise like that of sailors, and the dashing of oars. Not a little alarmed, we crept forward to the jaws of the monster, where, standing between the teeth, where everything might be seen, we beheld one of the most astonishing spectacles, far surpassing all that I had ever seen in my whole life ; men who were five hundred feet in stature, and came sailing on islands, as if they had been on ship board. I am aware that what I am saying will be thought incredible, yet I cannot help proceeding : it must out. These islands were indeed of considerable length, one with another about eighteen miles in circumference ; but proportionally not very high. Upon each of them were some eight and twenty rowers, who, sitting in two rows on both sides, rowed with huge cypresses, having their branches and leaves on. In the after part of the ship (if I may so term it) stood the pilot on a high hill, managing a brazen rudder that might be perhaps six hundred feet long. On the forecastle about forty of them were
62
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
standing, armed for war, and looking in all respects like men, excepting that instead of hair they had flames of fire on their heads, and therefore had no occasion for a helmet. The place of sails on each of these islands was supplied by a thick forest, on which the wind rushing, drove and turned the island, how and whither the pilot would. By the rowers stood one that had the command over them ; and these islands moved by the help of the oar, like so many galleys, with the greatest velocity.
At first we saw only two or three ; by degrees, however, perhaps six hundred came in sight ; and after forming them selves in two lines, they began to engage in a regular sea fight. Many ran foul of each other by the stern with such force that not a few were overset by the violence of the shock, and went to the bottom. Others got entangled together, and obstinately maintained the fight with equal bravery and ardor, and could not easily be parted. The combatants on the foredeck showed the most consummate valor, leaped into the enemy's ships, and cut down all before them, for no quarter was given. Instead of grappling irons, they hurled enormous polypi fast tied to thick ropes, which clung to the forest, with their numerous arms, and thus kept the island from moving. The shot they made use of, and with which they sadly wounded one another, were oysters one of which would have completely filled a wagon, and sponges each big enough to cover an acre of ground.
By what we could gather from their mutual shouts, the commander of one fleet was called iEolocentaurus, and that of the other Thalassopotes ; and the occasion of the war, as it appeared, was given by Thalassopotes, who accused JEolocen- taurus of having stolen several shoals of dolphins from him. Certain it that the iEolocentaurian party came off victo rious, having sunk nearly hundred and fifty of their enemy's islands, and captured three others, with all the men upon them the rest sheered off, and made their escape. The conquerors, after pursuing them for some time, returned towards evening to the wrecks, made prizes of most of them, and got up their own islands for in the engagement no fewer than eighty had gone down. This done, they nailed one of the islands to the head of the whale as monument of the victory, and passed the night in the wake of the monster. On the follow ing day they got out upon the back of the whale, sacrificed to their deities, buried their dead in it, and then set sail with great jubilation.
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IMAGINARY CORRESPONDENCE. 68
IMAGINARY CORRESPONDENCE. By ALCIPHRON.
(Translated for this work by Forrest Morgan. )
[Alciphron (the name perhaps a pseudonym) was probably a rhetorician of Athens in the second century after Christ. He lives through a collection of imaginary letters of the Athenian lower classes in the third century B. C. , each a tableau of some aspect of that life, mostly drawn from the comic writers, but developed by his own wit. ]
The Neglected Wife.
Panope to Euthyoolus.
You married me, Euthybolus, not a cast-off woman nor one of the herd, but born of a father and mother both of good family. Sosthenes of Stiria was my father and Damophila my mother ; and they united me, your betrothed as being their sole heiress, to you in marriage to have lawful children.
But you, so free with your eyes and given up to promiscu ous amours, disgrace me and our mutual children, Galene and Thalassione, by falling in love with that emigrant creature from Hermione, whom the Piraeus took in for a mischief to beholders. The young sailors go roystering to her, each with a different gift ; and she takes it and swallows it up like Charybdis.
But you look down on fisher-gifts; you don't and won't give her sardines or mullets, say ; and though you are getting old, long since married, and father of children by no means babies, you must send her, to supplant rivals, a Milesian reticule and a Sicilian cloak, and more than all, money.
Now lower your crest, and stop being so amorous and mad after women, or rest assured I shall go back to my father, who will not neglect me, and will indict you before the judges for ill treatment of me.
Country Maiden and Prince Charming.
Q-laucippe to Oharopa.
I am no longer my own, mother, and I cannot bear to wed the one my father has lately promised me in marriage to, — the
64 IMAGINARY CORRESPONDENCE.
young fellow from Methymna, the pilot's son, — because I have seen that city youth, the vine-bearer, since you sent me off to the city when the vine-bearing festival was celebrated.
For he is beautiful, mother, beautiful, and ever so sweet, and has curls crisper than sea-moss, and smiles more charmingly than the sea at rest, and the glances of his dark-blue eyes sparkle like the sea when first lighted up by the rays of the sun. His whole face — oh, you would say the Graces had left Orchomenus and washed clean in the Argaphian fountain to dance on his cheeks. His lips are painted with roses taken from the bosom of Venus and placed on their tips.
Either I must marry him, or in imitation of the Lesbian Sappho I will throw myself — not from the Leucadian rocks but from the cliffs of Piraeus — into the waves.
Charopa to Q-laucippe.
Daughter, you are senseless and not in sound mind. You need hellebore — not indeed the common sort, but that of Anti- cyra of Phocis [reputed to cure insanity]; but when you ought to be ashamed of it, you strip your face of maiden mod esty. Be calm, and come to yourself, and recover from this frenzy, and banish that wretch from your mind. For if your father should learn anything about this story, he would throw you into the sea as food for the fishes, without hesitation or delay.
The Dog in the Manger.
Encymon to Halictypus.
When I saw a broken old net on the shore of Sunium, I asked whose it was, and how it happened that it was not put out to be filled, but right in the fishing season lay there rot ting with age.
They said it was yours four years before ; when it caught on hidden rocks under water, the knots in the middle were cut; that since then you had never cared to mend it or take it away, so it had stayed in the place, none of the neighbors daring to touch another's property.
So it has become nobody's, not merely to the people there, but to you, the owner. Therefore I ask you for what, being long since broken up, is not yours. I am sure you will give
IMAGINARY CORRESPONDENCE. 65
me cheerfully what you have abandoned as utterly destroyed, and so is no loss to you.
Halictypus to Encymon.
A neighbor's eye is hostile and envious, as the proverb has it. What are my affairs to you ? What makes you think, for sooth, that what I choose to neglect is yours ? Restrain your hands, or rather your insatiable greed, so that your appetite for others' goods won't set you asking for unreasonable presents.