Euthydemus

“ You wish him no longer to be what he is, which can only mean that you wish him to perish. Pretty lovers and friends they must be who want their favourite not to be, or to perish!
When Ctesippus heard this he got very angry (as a lover well might) and said: Stranger of Thurii—if politeness would allow me I should say, A plague upon you! What can make you tell such a lie about me and the others, which I hardly like to repeat, as that I wish Cleinias to perish?
Euthydemus replied: And do you think, Ctesippus, that it is possible to tell a lie? ”

“ In this part of the dialogue his dread of committing impiety, the pretended derivation of his wisdom from another, the extravagance of some of his etymologies, and, in general, the manner in which the fun, fast and furious, vires acquirit eundo, remind us strongly of the Phaedrus. The jest is a long one, extending over more than half the dialogue. But then, we remember that the Euthydemus is a still longer jest, in which the irony is preserved to the very end. ”

“ They never drew rein before the charge of Panaetolus, until they rejoined Euthydemus, with a loss of more than half their number. The king’s cavalry on the contrary retired, after killing large numbers and taking a great many prisoners, and bivouacked by the side of the river. In this action the king had a horse killed under him, and lost some of his teeth by a blow on the mouth; and his whole bearing obtained him a reputation for bravery of the highest description. After this battle Euthydemus retreated in dismay with his army to the city of Zariaspa in Bactria.... ”

“ So it seems to me that they are the verses of Euthydemus himself."
And Dionysiocles said, "Whoever wrote the verses, my good Leonidas, is a matter which you all, as being grammarians of the highest reputation, are very capable of deciding. But since the discussion is turning upon pickles and salt fish, concerning which I recollect a proverb which was thought deserving of being quoted by Charchus the Solensian,—
For old salt-fish is fond of marjoram. ”

“ Of the tentative kind, there is the Euthyphro, the Meno, the Ion, the Charmides, and the Theætetus. Of the demonstrative description, we have the Protagoras, and of the distinctive class the Euthydemus, the two Hippias’s, and the Gorgias. And this is enough to say about the dialogues as to what they are, and what their different kinds are.
XXXIII. But since there is also a great division of opinion respecting them, from some people asserting that in them Plato dogmatizes in a positive manner, while others deny this, we had better also touch upon this part of the question. ”

“ And in the Laws, indeed, he reminds us of the inflation of the pipe by the Corybantes, which represses every inordinate and tumultuous motion. But in the Euthydemus, he makes mention of the collocation on a throne, which is performed in the Corybantic mysteries; just as in other dialogues he mentions the Curetic order, speaking of the armed sports of the Curetes. For the Curetes are said to surround and to dance round the Demiurgus of wholes, when he was unfolded into light from Rhea. In the intellectual Gods, therefore, the first Curetic order is allotted its hypostasis. ”

“ On his coins he wears an elephant’s skin with trunk and teeth on his head; on bronze coins, which have also an Indian legend in Kharoshti letters (see Bactria) , he calls himself the unvanquished king (Βασιλέως ἀνικήτου Δημητρίου) . One of his coins has already the square form used in India instead of the circular. Eventually he was defeated by the usurper Eucratides (q.v.) , who meanwhile had risen to great power in Bactria. About his death we know nothing; his young son Euthydemus II. (known only from coins) can have ruled only a short time. ”

“ Lurida meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean time Euthymia had the night to think over what she should do about it.
There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice like that which breaks the silence—of the stagnant hours of the night with its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in the morning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad been dictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home of Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast. ”

“ But Euthymia was not a young woman to be looked upon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, and walked like one, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to self-reliance, and command of herself as well as others. One could not pass her without being struck with her noble bearing and spirited features. If she had known how Maurice trembled as he looked upon her, in that conflict of attraction and uncontrollable dread,—if she had known it! ”

“ It is a man's work, not yours! You shall not go!” Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theories in this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held back. Taking a handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail of water and bound it about her head. Then she took several deep breaths of air, and filled her lungs as full as they would hold. She knew she must not take a single breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it, and Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long that more than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come up again. ”

“ Eudæmonism, the doctrine that the production of happiness is the aim and measure of virtue.
Eudocia, the ill-fated daughter of an Athenian Sophist, wife of Theodosius II., embraced Christianity, her name Athenais previously; was banished by her husband on an ill-founded charge of infidelity, and spent the closing years of her life in Jerusalem, where she became a convert to the views of Eutyches (q. v.) (394-400) .
Eudoxus of Cnidus, a Grecian astronomer, was a pupil of Plato, and afterwards studied in Egypt; said to have introduced a 3651⁄2 day year into Greece ”

“ Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She listened to her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, used as she was to Lurida's audacities. “The Terror's” brain had run away with a large share of the blood which ought to have gone to the nourishment of her general system. She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, a companion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with which nature had so economically endowed herself. ”

“ Eteocles, here represented as the younger, drove out Polynices, and seized the throne; Polynices takes refuge at Argos, where he prepares war against the usurper: an oracle declares that success shall be with that party which Oedipus joins, and a mysterious blessing is pronounced on the land which contains his bones. Thus, the possession of this wild tool of fate—raised up in age to a dread and ghastly consequence—becomes the argument of the play, as his death must become the catastrophe. It is the deep and fierce revenge of Oedipus that makes the passion of the whole. ”

“ Euthymia represented a complete, symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an index of a large, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being courageous, with such a firm organization. She could not help being generous, cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she was fair to look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. ”

“ Perhaps the heroön of Euthymos may have been near the river. “Heroizing” of Euthymos by a flash of lightning is confirmed by his statue: Callim., fr. 399; Pliny, NH. 7, 152; Schol. Paus. Hermes, 29, 148. Inscription on base of statue of E. at Olympia: Arch. Zeit., 1878, p. 82.
117 Paus. 6, 11, 2–9; D. Chr. 31, 340 M. [i, 247 Arn.] . Cf. Oinom. ap. Eus. PE. 5, 34, p. 231–2 V. Oinomaos 232 C refers to a similar legend of the pentathlos Euthykles and his statue, at Locri.
118 The story of Mitys (or Bitys) in Argos is known from Arist. Po. 9, p. 1452a, 7 ff. (Mirab. 156) . ”

“ He sends Ismene to offer a sacrifice to the Eumenides; in her absence Theseus enters, offers him protection and asks why he has come. Oedipus replies that he has a secret to reveal which is of great importance to Athens; at present there is peace between her and Thebes:
"but in the gods alone is no age or death; all else Time confounds, mastering everything. Strength of the Earth and of the body wastes, trust dies, disloyalty grows, the same spirit never stands firm among friends or allies. To some men early, to others late, pleasures become bitter and then again sweet." ”

“ In most parts of the world they are now absent, since they have been successfully ousted by the more highly organised groups of Eutheria. But at that period, when the higher Eutheria were in the ascendant, Australia and the islands to the north became cut off from Asia, and thus became freed from inroads of Eutheria, which were partly prevented by the physical barrier of the sea from effecting a settlement, and partly perhaps prevented owing to the ground being already taken up by the Marsupials. Likeness of habit gave the older inhabitants victory in the struggle for existence. ”

“ When Oedipus, king of Thebes, was ware that he had fulfilled the oracle uttered ere he was born, in that he had slain his father, king Laius, and wedded his mother Jocasta, he plucked out his own eyes in his shame and misery. So he ceased to be king; but, inasmuch as his two sons rendered to him neither love nor worship, he cursed them with this curse, "that they should divide their inheritance with the sword." But they essayed to escape this doom by covenanting to rule in turn, year by year. ”

“ Many an ill to Oedipus' house begins
This day. May happier life be yet in store!
Kreon.
Refrain laments: time is it we gave heed
To burial. Unto these words, Oedipus,⁠1585
Hearken: thy son Eteokles gave me rule
O'er this land, making it a marriage-dower
To Haimon with thy child Antigonê.
Therefore thou mayest dwell therein no more;
For plainly spake Teiresias—never Thebes⁠1590
Shall prosper while thou dwellest in the land. ”

“ If he had been suffering from some deadly and contagious malady she would have risked her life to help him, without a thought that there was any wonderful heroism in such self-devotion. Her friend Lurida might have been capable of the same sacrifice, but it would be after reasoning with herself as to the obligations which her sense of human rights and duties laid upon her, and fortifying her courage with the memory of noble deeds recorded of women in ancient and modern history. With Euthymia the primary human instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection about them. ”

“ But the story of Euthymos and the Hero of Temesa agrees even in its details with a story coming from a far distant locality, Krisa at the foot of Mt. Parnassos, where lived the monster Lamia, or Sybaris, who was overthrown by Eurybatos—as it is told in Nikander’s Ἑτεροιούμενα, ap. Ant. Lib. viii—and is even to this day related as a fairy-tale; see B. Schmidt. Gr. Märchen, 142, 246 f. It is unnecessary to suppose imitation of either legend by the other; both independently reproduce the same fairy-tale motif, which is in fact very common everywhere. ”

“ Eutyches was an obstinate, narrow-minded old man who had spent several years in retirement when he came forward to contest the error of Nestorianism. He did this so extravagantly that to his amazement he found himself charged with heresy in an opposite direction. He maintained that the two natures in Christ were fused together in the incarnation, so that there became "one incarnate nature of God the Word." His opinions were condemned at a local synod; but Eutyches would not submit and demanded a general council, which was convened at Ephesus by Theodosius ii. ”

“ The sentiments of Eutyches, even as they are recorded by the party who charged him with heresy, seem to imply so much of soundness in his principles, and of moderation in his maintenance of those principles, that one must feel sorrow on finding such a man maintaining error at any time. The following is among the records of transactions rehearsed at Chalcedon: "He, Eutyches, professed that he followed the expositions of the holy and blessed Fathers who formed the Councils of Nicæa and Ephesus, and was ready to subscribe to them. ”

“ The night was a tumult of growling, and Ugh-lomi and Eudena could hear the bones snap in their teeth. But they knew the hyæna dare not attack any creature alive and awake, and so they were not greatly afraid.
Of a daytime Eudena would go along the narrow path the old lion had made in the reeds until she was beyond the bend, and then she would creep into the thicket and watch the tribe. She would lie close by the alders where they had bound her to offer her up to the lion, and thence she could see them on the knoll by the fire, small and clear, as she had seen them that night. ”

“ There is Euphusius, with all the good qualities in the world, deserves well of nobody: that universal good-will which is so strong in him, exposes him to the assault of every invader upon his time, his conversation, and his property. His diet is butcher's meat, his wenches are in plain pinners and Norwich crapes, [200] his dress like other people, his income great, and yet has he seldom a guinea at command. From these easy gentlemen, are collected estates by servants or gamesters; which latter fraternity are excusable, when we think of this clan, who seem born to be their prey. ”