of Samosata Lucian

“ Poverty is not here the sole requirement of the critic: taste is also necessary; nor will the eyes deliver judgement without the assistance of Reason. The eastern aspect, procuring us, as in the temples of old, that first welcome peep of the sun in his new-born glory, and suffering his rays to pour in without stint through the open doors, the adaptation of length to breadth and breadth to height, the free admission of light at every stage of the Sun's course,—all is charmingly contrived, and redounds to the credit of the architect. ”

“ SLANDER, A WARNING
A terrible thing is ignorance, the source of endless human woes, spreading a mist over facts, obscuring truth, and casting a gloom upon the individual life. We are all walkers in darkness—or say, our experience is that of blind men, knocking helplessly against the real, and stepping high to clear the imaginary, failing to see what is close at their feet, and in terror of being hurt by something that is leagues away. Whatever we do, we are perpetually slipping about. ”

“ Alcidamas the cynic, who had now emptied his goblet, after finding out the bride's name, called for silence; he then faced the ladies, and cried out in a loud voice: 'Cleanthis, I drink to you in the name of my patron Heracles.' There was a general laugh; upon which, 'You vile scum,' says he, 'you laugh, do you, because I invoke our God Heracles as I toast the bride? Let me tell you that, if she will not pledge me, she shall never bear a son as brave of spirit, as free of judgement, as strong of body, as myself.' And he proceeded to show us more of the said body, till it was scarcely decent. ”

“ History supplies you with the greatness and distinction of Demosthenes; it is all known; his country was Athens, the splendid, the famous, the bulwark of Hellas. Now if I could have laid hands on Athens, I might have used the poet's right to introduce the loves and judgements and sojourns there of the Gods, the gifts they lavished on it, the tale of Eleusis. As for its laws and courts and festivals, its Piraeus and its colonies, the memorials set up in it of victory by land and sea, Demosthenes himself is the authority for saying that no words could do justice to them. ”

“ Now the poets inform me that in the old days when you were king it was otherwise with men; earth bestowed her gifts upon them unsown and unploughed, every man's table was spread automatically, rivers ran wine and milk and honey. Most wonderful of all, the men themselves were gold, and poverty never came near them. As for us, we can hardly pass for lead; some yet meaner material must be found. In the sweat of our face the most of us eat bread. Poverty, distress, and helplessness, sighs and lamentations and pinings for what is not, such is the staple of man's life, the poor man's at least. ”

“ There are those ever-present human frailties, fickleness and satiety; there is the appetite for the surprising. We all delight, I cannot tell why, in whisperings and insinuations. I know people whose ears are as agreeably titillated with slander as their skin with a feather.
Supported by all these allies, the attack prevails; victory is hardly in doubt for a moment; there is no defence or resistance to the assault; the hearer surrenders without reluctance, and the slandered knows nothing of what is going on; as when a town is stormed by night, he has his throat cut in his sleep. ”

“ Even the young have the patriotic sentiment; but in the old it is as much more keen as their sense is greater. Every old man directs his efforts and his prayers to ending his life in his own land; where he began to live, there would he lay his bones, in the soil that formed him, and join his fathers in the grave. It is a dread fate to be condemned to exile even in death, and lie in alien earth.
But if you would know the true man's feeling for his country, it is in the born citizen that you must study it. ”

“ But if the island empire and the sea may not save me, I ask my safety from the Posidon at whose altar and under whose sanctuary I stand. And if Posidon's power avails not to keep his temple inviolate, if he scorns not to surrender Demosthenes to Archias, then welcome death; I will not transfer my worship to Antipater. I might have had Macedonia more at my devotion than Athens, might be now a partaker in your fortunes, if I would have ranged myself with Callimedon, and Pytheas, and Demades. ”

“ Ah, Cronus, there is the sting that rankles beyond endurance—that one should loll on cloth of finest purple, overload his stomach with all delicacies, and keep perpetual feast with guests to wish him joy, while I and my like dream over the problematic acquisition of a sixpence to provide us a loaf white or [Pg 119] brown, and send us to bed with a smack of cress or thyme or onion in our mouths. Now, good Cronus, either reform this altogether and feed us alike, or at the least induce the rich not to enjoy their good things alone; from their bushels of gold let them scatter a poor pint among us ”

“ These things if you correct and reform, you will have made life life, and your feast a feast. If not, we will leave the feasting to them, and just kneel down and pray that as they come from the bath the slave may knock down and spill their wine, the cook smoke their sauce and absent-mindedly pour the pea-soup over the caviare, the dog steal in while the scullions are busy and make away with the whole of the sausage and most of the pastry. Boar and buck and sucking-pigs, may they rival in their roasting Homer's oxen of the Sun! ”

“ All the tribe of them are down for gold, timber, rents, cattle, land, in Boeotia if not in Macedonia [21] ; but the walls of Byzantium are not more proof against the battering-ram than Demosthenes against gold.
This is the way I look at it, Parmenio. An Athenian who speaking in Athens prefers me to his country shall have of my money, but not of my friendship; as for one who hates me for his country's sake, I will assault him as I would a citadel, a wall, a dock, a trench, but I have only admiration for his virtue, and congratulations for the State that possesses him. ”

“ Why, think. Is a man conceivable—let alone a God—who would devour his own children?—wittingly, I mean; of course he might be a Thyestes and have a wicked brother; that is different. However, even granting that, I ask you whether he could help knowing he had a stone in his mouth instead of a baby; I envy him his teeth, that is all. The fact is, there was no war, and Zeus did not depose me; I voluntarily abdicated and retired from the cares of office. That I am not in fetters or in Tartarus you can see for yourself, or you must be as blind as Homer. ”

“ What admirable judgement has been shown, too, in the structure and decoration of the roof! nothing wanting, yet nothing superfluous; the gilding is exactly what was required to achieve elegance without empty display; it is precisely that little touch of adornment with which a beautiful and modest woman sets off her loveliness; it is the slender necklace about her neck, the light ring upon her finger, the earrings, the brooch, the fillet that imprisons her luxuriant hair, and, like the purple stripe upon a robe, enhances its beauty. ”

“ A WORD WITH HESIOD Lycinus. Hesiod
Ly. As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that, any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses, together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity. You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been, and tell of that which is to come. ”

“ But if he is mean and ignoble, he receives him with a lip smile, while he is gnashing his teeth in covert rage, wrathfully brooding in the soul's dark depth, as the poet describes it. I know nothing so characteristic of a warped slavish nature as to bite the lip while you nurse your spite and cultivate your secret hatred, one thing in your heart and another on your tongue, playing with the gay looks of comedy a lamentable sinister tragedy. This is especially apt to occur, when the slander comes from one who is known for an old friend of the slandered. ”

“ But it occurred to me to reserve these few days for the employments I have mentioned; during them I resume my authority, that men may remember what life was like in my days, when all things grew without sowing or ploughing of theirs—no ears of corn, but loaves complete and meat ready cooked—, when wine flowed in rivers, and there were fountains of milk and honey; all men were good and all men were gold. ”

“ Now, positively, Lycinus, you must have a try yourself. You find fault with everybody else; this time we should like to hear your version of a really unexceptionable wish.
Ly. What do I want with a wish? Here we are at the gates. What with the valiant Samippus's single combat at Babylon, and your breakfasts in Syria and dinners in Italy, you have used up my ground between you; and you are heartily welcome. [Pg 52] I have no fancy for a short-lived visionary wealth, with the humiliating sequel of barley-bread and no butter. ”

“ For great and brilliant and splendidly equipped cities many men have admiration, but for their own all men have love. No man—not the most enthusiastic sightseer that ever was—is so dazzled by foreign wonders as to forget his own land.
He who boasts that he is a citizen of no mean city misses, it seems to me, the true patriotism; he suggests that it would be a mortification to him to belong to a State less distinguished. It is country in the abstract that I delight rather to honour. It is well enough when you are comparing States to investigate the questions of size or beauty or markets ”

“ The more plausible he is, the greater need of care. Never trust another's judgement—it may be in reality only his dislike—but reserve the inquiry to yourself; let envy, if such it was, recoil upon the backbiter, your trial of the two men's characters be an open one, and your award of contempt and approval deliberate. To award them earlier, carried away by the first word of slander—why, God bless me, how puerile and mean and iniquitous it all is! ”

“ You have not only the public enemies to fear: there are the numberless conspiracies, the envy and hatred of your courtiers; you have flatterers enough, but not one friend; their seeming goodwill is the work of fear or ambition. As to enjoyment, you can never dream of such a thing. You have to content yourself with glory and gold embroidery and purple; with the victor's garland, and the king's bodyguard ”

“ As for me, I saw nothing much in his appealing to his mother's Gods, but when he included his father's in the invocation, I laughed outright; it reminded me of the parricide story. The Cynics stood dry-eyed about the pyre, gazing upon the flames in silent manifestation of their grief. At last, when I was half dead with suppressed laughter, I addressed them. 'Intelligent sirs,' I said, 'let us go away. No pleasure is to be derived from seeing an old man roasted, and there is a horrible smell of burning. ”

“ Nothing, surely, could be more delightful than to find this noble building thrown open for the reception of eloquent praise, its atmosphere laden with panegyric, its very walls reechoing, cavern-like, to every syllable, prolonging each cadence, dwelling on each period;—nay, they are themselves an audience, most appreciative of audiences, that stores up the speaker's words in memory, and recompenses his efforts with a meed of most harmonious flattery. Even so do the rocks resound to the shepherd's flute ”

“ May their wardrobe-keepers be negligent, and our good friends the mice make sieve-work of their raiment, fit for nothing but tunny-nets! May every pretty curled minion, every Hyacinth and Achilles and Narcissus they keep, turn bald as he hands the cup! let his hair fall off and his chin grow bristly, till he is like the peak-bearded fellows on the comic stage, hairy and prickly on cheek and temple, and on the top smooth and bare! ”