Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  Sophocles the tragedian swallowed a grape and choked to death at ninety-five. Brought to trial by his son Iophon toward the close of his life on a charge of feeble-mindedness, he read the jurors his Oedipus at Colonus, proving by the play that he was sound of mind, so that the jury applauded him to the echo and convicted the son himself of insanity. Cratinus, the comic poet, lived ninety-seven years, and toward the end of his life he produced “The Flask” and won the prize, dying not long thereafter. Philemon, the comic poet, was ninety-seven like Cratinus, and was lying on a couch resting. When he saw a donkey eating the figs that had been prepared for his own consumption, he burst into a fit of laughter; calling his servant and telling him, along with a great and hearty laugh, to give the donkey also a sup of wine, he choked with his laughter and died. Epicharmus, the comic poet, is also said to have lived ninety-seven years. Anacreon, the lyric poet, lived eighty-five years; Stesichorus, the lyric poet, the same, and Simonides of Ceos more than ninety.

  Of the grammarians, Eratosthenes, son of Aglaus, of Cyrene, who was not only a grammarian but might also be called a poet, a philosopher and a geometrician, lived eighty-two years. Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, is said to have lived eighty-five years.

  These are the kings and the literary men whose names I have been able to collect. As I have promised to record some of the Romans and the Italians who were octogenarians, I will set them forth for you, saintly Quintillus, in another treatise, if it be the will of the gods.

  A TRUE STORY — Ἀληθῶν Διηγημάτων

  Translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler

  This famous satire is one of the earliest known pieces of fiction to concern the themes of travelling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare. Composed as a satire against contemporary and ancient sources, which quote fantastic and mythical events as truth, Ἀληθῶν Διηγημάτων narrates how Lucian and a company of adventuring heroes sail westward through the Strait of Gibraltar in order to explore lands and inhabitants beyond the Ocean. The travellers are blown off course by a strong wind and after seventy-nine days they reach an island, which has a river of wine, filled with fish and bears, a marker indicating that Heracles and Dionysus have travelled there. Shortly after leaving the island, they are lifted up by a whirlwind and after seven days deposited on the Moon. There they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun over the colonisation of the Morning Star, involving armies of stalk-and-mushroom men, acorn-dogs and cloud-centaurs. Unusually, the Sun, Moon, stars and planets are portrayed as locales, each with its unique geographic details and inhabitants. The war is finally won by the Sun’s armies clouding the Moon over.

  After returning to Earth, the travellers become trapped in a giant two-hundred mile-long whale. Inside this creature there live many groups of people, whom they rout in war. They also reach a sea of milk, an island of cheese and the isle of the blessed, where Lucian meets the heroes of the Trojan War and even Homer. They find Herodotus being eternally punished for the “lies” he published in his Histories. After leaving the Island of the Blessed, they deliver a letter to Calypso given to them by Odysseus, bemoaning his regret that he had not stayed with her and lived forever. They then discover a chasm in the Ocean, followed by a far-off continent and they next decide to explore it. The satire ends abruptly with Lucian explaining that their adventure there will be the subject of a following book.

  It is believed Lucian intended his strange tale to be a form of literary criticism — a satire against contemporary and ancient sources, particularly Ctesias, Iambulus and Homer, whose works presented fantastic and mythical events as truth. Many of Lucian’s characters and events are exaggerated to ridiculous ends to mock the original tales. Consequently, Lucian goes on to state that the story recounted in A True Story is about “things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say.” He justifies the title by arguing that his is the only truthful mythological story ever written, as it is the only one that admits that it is entirely false.

  The European Pillar of Hercules: the Rock of Gibraltar, which Lucian sails westward through during this satire.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  BOOK I

  BOOK II

  INTRODUCTION

  Athletes and physical trainers do not limit their attention to the questions of perfect condition and exercise; they say there is a time for relaxation also — which indeed they represent as the most important element in training. I hold it equally true for literary men that after severe study they should unbend the intellect, if it is to come perfectly efficient to its next task.

  The rest they want will best be found in a course of literature which does not offer entertainment pure and simple, depending on mere wit or felicity, but is also capable of stirring an educated curiosity — in a way which I hope will be exemplified in the following pages. They are intended to have an attraction independent of any originality of subject, any happiness of general design, any verisimilitude in the piling up of fictions. This attraction is in the veiled reference underlying all the details of my narrative; they parody the cock-and-bull stories of ancient poets, historians, and philosophers; I have only refrained from adding a key because I could rely upon you to recognize as you read.

  Ctesias, son of Ctesiochus of Cnidus, in his work on India and its characteristics, gives details for which he had neither the evidence of his eyes nor of hearsay. Iambulus’s Oceanica is full of marvels; the whole thing is a manifest fiction, but at the same time pleasant reading. Many other writers have adopted the same plan, professing to relate their own travels, and describing monstrous beasts, savages, and strange ways of life. The fount and inspiration of their humour is the Homeric Odysseus, entertaining Alcinous’s court with his prisoned winds, his men one-eyed or wild or cannibal, his beasts with many heads, and his metamorphosed comrades; the Phaeacians were simple folk, and he fooled them to the top of their bent.

  When I come across a writer of this sort, I do not much mind his lying; the practice is much too well established for that, even with professed philosophers; I am only surprised at his expecting to escape detection. Now I am myself vain enough to cherish the hope of bequeathing something to posterity; I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record, having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood — but falsehood of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you are to expect — that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers’ incredulity.

  BOOK I

  Starting on a certain date from the Pillars of Heracles, I sailed with a fair wind into the Atlantic. The motives of my voyage were a certain intellectual restlessness, a passion for novelty, a curiosity about the limits of the ocean and the peoples who might dwell beyond it. This being my design, I provisioned and watered my ship on a generous scale. My crew amounted to fifty, all men whose interests, as well as their years, corresponded with my own. I had further provided a good supply of arms, secured the best navigator to be had for money, and had the ship — a sloop — specially strengthened for a long and arduous voyage.

  For a day and a night we were carried quietly along by the breeze, with land still in sight. But with the next day’s dawn the wind rose to a gale, with a heavy sea and a dark sky; we found ourselves unable to take in sail. We surrendered ourselves to the elements, let her run, and were storm-driven for more than eleven weeks. On the eightieth day the sun came out quite suddenly, and we found ourselves close to a lofty wooded island, round which the waves were murmuring gently, the sea having almost fallen by this time. We brought her to land,
disembarked, and after our long tossing lay a considerable time idle on shore; we at last made a start, however, and leaving thirty of our number to guard the ship I took the other twenty on a tour of inspection.

  We had advanced half a mile inland through woods, when we came upon a brazen pillar, inscribed in Greek characters — which however were worn and dim— ‘Heracles and Dionysus reached this point.’ Not far off were two footprints on rock; one might have been an acre in area, the other being smaller; and I conjecture that the latter was Dionysus’s, and the other Heracles’s; we did obeisance, and proceeded. Before we had gone far, we found ourselves on a river which ran wine; it was very like Chian; the stream full and copious, even navigable in parts. This evidence of Dionysus’s sojourn was enough to convince us that the inscription on the pillar was authentic. Resolving to find the source, I followed the river up, and discovered, instead of a fountain, a number of huge vines covered with grapes; from the root of each there issued a trickle of perfectly clear wine, the joining of which made the river. It was well stocked with great fish, resembling wine both in colour and taste; catching and eating some, we at once found ourselves intoxicated; and indeed when opened the fish were full of wine-lees; presently it occurred to us to mix them with ordinary water fish, thus diluting the strength of our spirituous food.

  We now crossed the river by a ford, and came to some vines of a most extraordinary kind. Out of the ground came a thick well-grown stem; but the upper part was a woman, complete from the loins upward. They were like our painters’ representations of Daphne in the act of turning into a tree just as Apollo overtakes her. From the finger-tips sprang vine twigs, all loaded with grapes; the hair of their heads was tendrils, leaves, and grape-clusters. They greeted us and welcomed our approach, talking Lydian, Indian, and Greek, most of them the last. They went so far as to kiss us on the mouth; and whoever was kissed staggered like a drunken man. But they would not permit us to pluck their fruit, meeting the attempt with cries of pain. Some of them made further amorous advances; and two of my comrades who yielded to these solicitations found it impossible to extricate themselves again from their embraces; the man became one plant with the vine, striking root beside it; his fingers turned to vine twigs, the tendrils were all round him, and embryo grape- clusters were already visible on him.

  We left them there and hurried back to the ship, where we told our tale, including our friends’ experiment in viticulture. Then after taking some casks ashore and filling them with wine and water we bivouacked near the beach, and next morning set sail before a gentle breeze. But about midday, when we were out of sight of the island, a waterspout suddenly came upon us, which swept the ship round and up to a height of some three hundred and fifty miles above the earth. She did not fall back into the sea, but was suspended aloft, and at the same time carried along by a wind which struck and filled the sails.

  For a whole week we pursued our airy course, and on the eighth day descried land; it was an island with air for sea, glistening, spherical, and bathed in light. We reached it, cast anchor, and landed; inspection soon showed that it was inhabited and cultivated. In the daytime nothing could be discerned outside of it; but night revealed many neighbouring islands, some larger and some smaller than ours; there was also another land below us containing cities, rivers, seas, forests, and mountains; and this we concluded to be our Earth.

  We were intending to continue our voyage, when we were discovered and detained by the Horse-vultures, as they are called. These are men mounted on huge vultures, which they ride like horses; the great birds have ordinarily three heads. It will give you some idea of their size if I state that each of their quill-feathers is longer and thicker than the mast of a large merchantman. This corps is charged with the duty of patrolling the land, and bringing any strangers it may find to the king; this was what was now done with us. The king surveyed us, and, forming his conclusions from our dress, ‘Strangers,’ said he, ‘you are Greeks, are you not?’ we assented. ‘And how did you traverse this vast space of air?’ In answer we gave a full account of ourselves, to which he at once replied with his own history. It seemed he too was a mortal, named Endymion, who had been conveyed up from our Earth in his sleep, and after his arrival had become king of the country; this was, he told us, what we knew on our Earth as the moon. He bade us be of good cheer and entertain no apprehensions; all our needs should be supplied.

  ‘And if I am victorious,’ he added, ‘in the campaign which I am now commencing against the inhabitants of the Sun, I promise you an extremely pleasant life at my court.’ We asked about the enemy, and the quarrel. ‘Phaethon,’ he replied, ‘king of the Sun (which is inhabited, like the Moon), has long been at war with us. The occasion was this: I wished at one time to collect the poorest of my subjects and send them as a colony to Lucifer, which is uninhabited. Phaethon took umbrage at this, met the emigrants half way with a troop of Horse-ants, and forbade them to proceed. On that occasion, being in inferior force, we were worsted and had to retreat; but I now intend to take the offensive and send my colony. I shall be glad if you will participate; I will provide your equipment and mount you on vultures from the royal coops; the expedition starts to-morrow.’ I expressed our readiness to do his pleasure.

  That day we were entertained by the king; in the morning we took our place in the ranks as soon as we were up, our scouts having announced the approach of the enemy. Our army numbered 100,000 (exclusive of camp- followers, engineers, infantry, and allies), the Horse-vultures amounting to 80,000, and the remaining 20,000 being mounted on Salad-wings. These latter are also enormous birds, fledged with various herbs, and with quill-feathers resembling lettuce leaves. Next these were the Millet- throwers and the Garlic-men. Endymion had also a contingent from the North of 30,000 Flea-archers and 50,000 Wind-coursers. The former have their name from the great fleas, each of the bulk of a dozen elephants, which they ride. The Wind-coursers are infantry, moving through the air without wings; they effect this by so girding their shirts, which reach to the ankle, that they hold the wind like a sail and propel their wearers ship-fashion. These troops are usually employed as skirmishers. 70,000 Ostrich-slingers and 50,000 Horse-cranes were said to be on their way from the stars over Cappadocia. But as they failed to arrive I did not actually see them; and a description from hearsay I am not prepared to give, as the marvels related of them put some strain on belief.

  Such was Endymion’s force. They were all armed alike; their helmets were made of beans, which grow there of great size and hardness; the breastplates were of overlapping lupine-husks sewn together, these husks being as tough as horn; as to shields and swords, they were of the Greek type.

  When the time came, the array was as follows: on the right were the Horse-vultures, and the King with the elite of his forces, including ourselves. The Salad-wings held the left, and in the centre were the various allies. The infantry were in round numbers 60,000,000; they were enabled to fall in thus: there are in the Moon great numbers of gigantic spiders, considerably larger than an average Aegean island; these were instructed to stretch webs across from the Moon to Lucifer; as soon as the work was done, the King drew up his infantry on this artificial plain, entrusting the command to Nightbat, son of Fairweather, with two lieutenants.

  On the enemy’s side, Phaethon occupied the left with his Horse-ants; they are great winged animals resembling our ants except in size; but the largest of them would measure a couple of acres. The fighting was done not only by their riders; they used their horns also; their numbers were stated at 50,000. On their right was about an equal force of Sky-gnats — archers mounted on great gnats; and next them the Sky-pirouetters, light- armed infantry only, but of some military value; they slung monstrous radishes at long range, a wound from which was almost immediately fatal, turning to gangrene at once; they were supposed to anoint their missiles with mallow juice. Next came the Stalk-fungi, 10,000 heavy-armed troops for close quarters; the explanation of their name is that their shields are mushrooms, and their
spears asparagus stalks. Their neighbours were the Dog-acorns, Phaethon’s contingent from Sirius. These were 5,000 in number, dog-faced men fighting on winged acorns. It was reported that Phaethon too was disappointed of the slingers whom he had summoned from the Milky Way, and of the Cloud-centaurs. These latter, however, arrived, most unfortunately for us, after the battle was decided; the slingers failed altogether, and are said to have felt the resentment of Phaethon, who wasted their territory with fire. Such was the force brought by the enemy.

  As soon as the standards were raised and the asses on both sides (their trumpeters) had brayed, the engagement commenced. The Sunite left at once broke without awaiting the onset of the Horse-vultures, and we pursued, slaying them. On the other hand, their right had the better of our left, the Sky-gnats pressing on right up to our infantry. When these joined in, however, they turned and fled, chiefly owing to the moral effect of our success on the other flank. The rout became decisive, great numbers were taken and slain, and blood flowed in great quantities on to the clouds, staining them as red as we see them at sunset; much of it also dropped earthwards, and suggested to me that it was possibly some ancient event of the same kind which persuaded Homer that Zeus had rained blood at the death of Sarpedon.