Clo. To be sure, I noticed that you were laughing, some time ago. What was it in particular that excited your mirth?
Mi. I’ll tell you, best of Goddesses. Being next door to a tyrant up there, I was all eyes for what went on in his house; and he seemed to me neither more nor less than a God. I saw the embroidered purple, the host of courtiers, the gold, the jewelled goblets, the couches with their feet of silver: and I thought, this is happiness. As for the sweet savour that arose when his dinner was getting ready, it was too much for me; such blessedness seemed more than human. And then his proud looks and stately walk and high carriage, striking admiration into all beholders! It seemed almost as if he must be handsomer than other men, and a good eighteen inches taller. But when he was dead, he made a queer figure, with all his finery gone; though I laughed more at myself than at him: there had I been worshipping mere scum on no better authority than the smell of roast meat, and reckoning happiness by the blood of Lacedaemonian sea-snails! There was Gniphon the usurer, too, bitterly reproaching himself for having died without ever knowing the taste of wealth, leaving all his money to his nearest relation and heir-at-law, the spendthrift Rhodochares, when he might have had the enjoyment of it himself.
When I saw him, I laughed as if I should never stop: to think of him as he used to be, pale, wizened, with a face full of care, his fingers the only rich part of him, for they had the talents to count, — scraping the money together bit by bit, and all to be squandered in no time by that favourite of Fortune, Rhodochares! — But what are we waiting for now? There will be time enough on the voyage to enjoy their woebegone faces, and have our laugh out.
Clo. Come on board, and then the ferryman can haul up the anchor.
Cha. Now, now! What are you doing here? The boat is full. You wait till to-morrow. We can bring you across in the morning.
Mi. What right have you to leave me behind, — a shade of twenty-four hours’ standing? I tell you what it is, I shall have you up before Rhadamanthus. A plague on it, she’s moving! And here I shall be left all by myself. Stay, though: why not swim across in their wake? No matter if I get tired; a dead man will scarcely be drowned. Not to mention that I have not a penny to pay my fare.
Clo. Micyllus! Stop! You must not come across that way; Heaven forbid!
Mi. Ha, ha! I shall get there first, and I shouldn’t wonder.
Clo. This will never do. We must get to him, and pick him up…. Hermes, give him a hand up.
Cha. And where is he to sit now he is here? We are full up, as you may see.
Her. What do you say to the tyrant’s shoulders?
Clo. A good idea that.
Cha. Up with you then; and make the rascal’s back ache. And now, good luck to our voyage!
Cy. Charon, I may as well tell you the plain truth at once. The penny for my fare is not forthcoming; I have nothing but my wallet, look, and this stick. But if you want a hand at baling, here I am; or I could take an oar; only give me a good stout one, and you shall have no fault to find with me.
Cha. To it, then; and I’ll ask no other payment of you.
Cy. Shall I tip them a stave?
Cha. To be sure, if you have a sea-song about you.
Cy. I have several. Look here though, an opposition is starting: a song of lamentation. It will throw me out.
Sh. Oh, my lands, my lands! — Ah, my money, my money! — Farewell, my fine palace! — The thousands that fellow will have to squander! — Ah, my helpless children! — To think of the vines I planted last year! Who, ah who, will pluck the grapes? —
Her. Why, Micyllus, have you never an Oh or an Ah? It is quite improper that any shade should cross the stream, and make no moan.
Mi. Get along with you. What have I to do with Ohs and Ahs? I’m enjoying the trip!
Her. Still, just a groan or two. It’s expected.
Mi. Well, if I must, here goes. — Farewell, leather, farewell! Ah, Soles, old Soles! — Oh, ancient Boots! — Woe’s me! Never again shall I sit empty from morn till night; never again walk up and down, of a winter’s day, naked, unshod, with chattering teeth! My knife, my awl, will be another’s: whose, ah! whose?
Her. Yes, that will do. We are nearly there.
Cha. Wait a bit! Fares first, please. Your fare, Micyllus; every one else has paid; one penny.
Mi. You don’t expect to get a penny out of the poor cobbler? You’re joking, Charon; or else this is what they call a ‘castle in the air.’ I know not whether your penny is square or round.
Cha. A fine paying trip this, I must say! However, — all ashore! I must fetch the horses, cows, dogs, and other livestock. Their turn comes now.
Clo. You can take charge of them for the rest of the way, Hermes. I am crossing again to see after the Chinamen, Indopatres and Heramithres. They have been fighting about boundaries, and have killed one another by this time.
Her. Come, shades, let us get on; — follow me, I mean, in single file.
Mi. Bless me, how dark it is! Where is handsome Megillus now? There would be no telling Simmiche from Phryne. All complexions are alike here, no question of beauty, greater or less. Why, the cloak I thought so shabby before passes muster here as well as royal purple; the darkness hides both alike. Cyniscus, whereabouts are you?
Cy. Use your ears; here I am. We might walk together. What do you say?
Mi. Very good; give me your hand. — I suppose you have been admitted to the mysteries at Eleusis? That must have been something like this, I should think?
Cy. Pretty much. Look, here comes a torch-bearer; a grim, forbidding dame. A Fury, perhaps?
Mi. She looks like it, certainly.
Her. Here they are, Tisiphone. One thousand and four.
Ti. It is time we had them. Rhadamanthus has been waiting.
Rhad. Bring them up, Tisiphone. Hermes, you call out their names as they are wanted.
Cy. Rhadamanthus, as you love your father Zeus, have me up first for examination.
Rhad. Why?
Cy. There is a certain shade whose misdeeds on earth I am anxious to denounce. And if my evidence is to be worth anything, you must first be satisfied of my own character and conduct.
Rhad. Who are you?
Cy. Cyniscus, your worship; a student of philosophy.
Rhad. Come up for judgement; I will take you first. Hermes, summon the accusers.
Her. If any one has an accusation to bring against Cyniscus here present, let him come forward.
Cy. No one stirs!
Rhad. Ah, but that is not enough, my friend. Off with your clothes; I must have a look at your brands.
Cy. Brands? Where will you find them?
Rhad. Never yet did mortal man sin, but he carried about the secret record thereof, branded on his soul.
Cy. Well, here I am stripped. Now for the ‘brands.’
Rhad. Clean from head to heel, except three or four very faint marks, scarcely to be made out. Ah! what does this mean? Here is place after place that tells of the iron; all rubbed out apparently, or cut out. How do you explain this, Cyniscus? How did you get such a clean skin again?
Cy. Why, in old days, when I knew no better, I lived an evil life, and acquired thereby a number of brands. But from the day that I began to practise philosophy, little by little I washed out all the scars from my soul,-thanks to the efficiency of that admirable lotion.
Rhad. Off with you then to the Isles of the Blest, and the excellent company you will find there. But we must have your impeachment of the tyrant before you go. Next shade, Hermes!
Mi. Mine is a very small affair, too, Rhadamanthus; I shall not keep you long. I have been stripped all this time; so do take me next.
Rhad. And who may you be?
Mi. Micyllus the cobbler.
Rhad. Very well, Micyllus. As clean as clean could be; not a mark anywhere. You may join Cyniscus. Now the Tyrant.
Her. Megapenthes, son of Lacydes, wanted! Where are you off to? This way! You there, the Tyrant! Up with him, Tisiphone, neck and crop.
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br /> Rhad. Now, Cyniscus, your accusation and your proofs. Here is the party.
Cy. There is in fact no need of an accusation. You will very soon know the man by the marks upon him. My words however may serve to unveil him, and to show his character in a clearer light. With the conduct of this monster as a private citizen, I need not detain you. Surrounded with a bodyguard, and aided by unscrupulous accomplices, he rose against his native city, and established a lawless rule. The persons put to death by him without trial are to be counted by thousands, and it was the confiscation of their property that gave him his enormous wealth. Since then, there is no conceivable iniquity which he has not perpetrated. His hapless fellow-citizens have been subjected to every form of cruelty and insult. Virgins have been seduced, boys corrupted, the feelings of his subjects outraged in every possible way. His overweening pride, his insolent bearing towards all who had to do with him, were such as no doom of yours can adequately requite. A man might with more security have fixed his gaze upon the blazing sun, than upon yonder tyrant. As for the refined cruelty of his punishments, it baffles description; and not even his familiars were exempt. That this accusation has not been brought without sufficient grounds, you may easily satisfy yourself, by summoning the murderer’s victims. — Nay, they need no summons; see, they are here; they press round as though they would stifle him. Every man there, Rhadamanthus, fell a prey to his iniquitous designs. Some had attracted his attention by the beauty of their wives; others by their resentment at the forcible abduction of their children; others by their wealth; others again by their understanding, their moderation, and their unvarying disapproval of his conduct.
Rhad. Villain, what have you to say to this?
Me. I committed the murders referred to. As for the rest, the adulteries and corruptions and seductions, it is all a pack of lies.
Cy. I can bring witnesses to these points too, Rhadamanthus.
Rhad. Witnesses, eh?
Cy. Hermes, kindly summon his Lamp and Bed. They will appear in evidence, and state what they know of his conduct.
Her. Lamp and Bed of Megapenthes, come into court. Good, they respond to the summons.
Rhad. Now, tell us all you know about Megapenthes. Bed, you speak first.
Bed. All that Cyniscus said is true. But really, Mr. Rhadamanthus, I don’t quite like to speak about it; such strange things used to happen overhead.
Rhad. Why, your unwillingness to speak is the most telling evidence of all! — Lamp, now let us have yours.
Lamp. What went on in the daytime I never saw, not being there. As for his doings at night, the less said the better. I saw some very queer things, though, monstrous queer. Many is the time I have stopped taking oil on purpose, and tried to go out. But then he used to bring me close up. It was enough to give any lamp a bad character.
Rhad. Enough of verbal evidence. Now, just divest yourself of that purple, and we will see what you have in the way of brands. Goodness gracious, the man’s a positive network! Black and blue with them! Now, what punishment can we give him? A bath in Pyriphlegethon? The tender mercies of Cerberus, perhaps?
Cy. No, no. Allow me, — I have a novel idea; something that will just suit him.
Rhad. Yes? I shall be obliged to you for a suggestion.
Cy. I fancy it is usual for departed spirits to take a draught of the water of Lethe?
Rhad. Just so.
Cy. Let him be the sole exception.
Rhad. What is the idea in that?
Cy. His earthly pomp and power for ever in his mind; his fingers ever busy on the tale of blissful items;— ’tis a heavy sentence!
Rhad. True. Be this the tyrant’s doom. Place him in fetters at Tantalus’s side, — never to forget the things of earth.
ZEUS CATECHIZED (ZEUS CROSS-EXAMINED) — Ζεὺς ἐλεγχόμενος
Translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler
ZEUS CROSS-EXAMINED
Cyniscus. Zeus
Cyn. Zeus: I am not going to trouble you with requests for a fortune or a throne; you get prayers enough of that sort from other people, and from your habit of convenient deafness I gather that you experience a difficulty in answering them. But there is one thing I should like, which would cost you no trouble to grant.
Zeus. Well, Cyniscus? You shall not be disappointed, if your expectations are as reasonable as you say.
Cyn. I want to ask you a plain question.
Zeus. Such a modest petition is soon granted; ask what you will.
Cyn. Well then: you know your Homer and Hesiod, of course? Is it all true that they sing of Destiny and the Fates — that whatever they spin for a man at his birth must inevitably come about?
Zeus. Unquestionably. Nothing is independent of their control. From their spindle hangs the life of all created things; whose end is predetermined even from the moment of their birth; and that law knows no change.
Cyn. Then when Homer says, for instance, in another place,
Lest unto Hell thou go, outstripping Fate,
he is talking nonsense, of course?
Zeus. Absolute nonsense. Such a thing is impossible: the law of the Fates, the thread of Destiny, is over all. No; so long as the poets are under the inspiration of the Muses, they speak truth: but once let those Goddesses leave them to their own devices, and they make blunders and contradict themselves. Nor can we blame them: they are but men; how should they know truth, when the divinity whose mouthpieces they were is departed from them?
Cyn. That point is settled, then. But there is another thing I want to know. There are three Fates, are there not, — Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropus?
Zeus. Quite so.
Cyn. But one also hears a great deal about Destiny and Fortune. Who are they, and what is the extent of their power? Is it equal to that of the Fates? or greater perhaps? People are always talking about the insuperable might of Fortune and Destiny.
Zeus. It is not proper, Cyniscus, that you should know all. But what made you ask me about the Fates?
Cyn. Ah, you must tell me one thing more first. Do the Fates also control you Gods? Do you depend from their thread?
Zeus. We do. Why do you smile?
Cyn. I was thinking of that bit in Homer, where he makes you address the Gods in council, and threaten to suspend all the world from a golden cord. You said, you know, that you would let the cord down from Heaven, and all the Gods together, if they liked, might take hold of it and try to pull you down, and they would never do it: whereas you, if you had a mind to it, could easily pull them up,
And Earth and Sea withal.
I listened to that passage with shuddering reverence; I was much impressed with the idea of your strength. Yet now I understand that you and your cord and your threats all depend from a mere cobweb. It seems to me Clotho should be the one to boast: she has you dangling from her distaff, like a sprat at the end of a fishing- line.
Zeus. I do not catch the drift of your questions.
Cyn. Come, I will speak my mind; and in the name of Destiny and the Fates take not my candour amiss. If the case stands thus, if the Fates are mistresses of all, and their decisions unalterable, then why do men sacrifice to you, and bring hecatombs, and pray for good at your hands? If our prayers can neither save us from evil nor procure us any boon from Heaven, I fail to see what we get for our trouble.
Zeus. These are nice questions! I see how it is, — you have been with the sophists; accursed race! who would deny us all concern in human affairs. Yes, these are just the points they raise, impiously seeking to pervert mankind from the way of sacrifice and prayer: it is all thrown away, forsooth! the Gods take no thought for mankind; they have no power on the earth. — Ah well; they will be sorry for it some day.
Cyn. Now, by Clotho’s own spindle, my questions are free from all sophistic taint. How it has come about, I know not; but one word has brought up another, and the end of it is — there is no use in sacrifice. Let us begin again. I will put you a few more questions; answer me frankly, but think before
you speak, this time.
Zeus. Well; if you have the time to waste on such tomfoolery.
Cyn. Everything proceeds from the Fates, you say?
Delphi Complete Works of Lucian Page 18