Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  [47] But my life was one of pleasure and luxury, and normal food had made my body handsome again and my coat resplendent with a fine growth of hair. When these excellent fellows saw that I was big and fat, although my barley was not being used but remained at the same level, they began to suspect my daring deeds, and, pretending to go to their bath, they closed the door behind them, put their eyes to a chink in it and looked inside. Then, unsuspicious of their trick, I went and started my meal. At first they laughed to see this incredible meal in progress, but then they called their fellow-slaves to see me, and they all laughed so heartily that their master heard them because of the din outside his room. He asked one of them why those outside were laughing so heartily. When he heard the reason, he got up from the table, peeped inside and, on seeing me gulping down a portion of wild boar, came running in roaring with laughter. I was very upset at being exposed as a thief and glutton in the presence of my master. But he laughed heartily at me, and first ordered me to be brought into his dining-room, and then gave instructions for a table to be put before me with many of the things which no other ass could eat - meats, shell-fish, soups and fish, some soused in fish-sauce and olive oil, others covered in mustard. Since I now saw that fortune was smiling on me kindly, and realised that only this comic turn would save me, although I was already gorged, I stood beside the table and started to eat. The room rang with laughter and someone said, “This ass will drink wine too, if someone will dilute it for him and serve it to him.” The master ordered this to be done and I drank what was brought to me.

  [48] He, naturally enough, saw that I was a marvellous treasure and told one of his stewards to give my purchaser twice what he had paid for me. He handed me over to a young freedman of his personal staff and told him to instruct me in all things I could do to afford him the greatest entertainment. Everything was quite simple for him, as I immediately obeyed my instructor in every respect. First of all he made me lie on a couch on my elbow just like a human being, then wrestle with him, yes and dance standing upright on my two legs, nod “yes” or “no” when spoken to, and do all the things which I could have done even without being taught. All this became the talk of the town - an ass at his master’s beck and call, an ass that drank wine, wrestled and danced. But my greatest claim to fame was that, when talked to, I would nod “yes” or “no” at the right time. Whenever I wanted a drink, I would give the wine-waiter a push and ask for it with my eyes. They were all amazed at this as something extraordinary, not knowing there was a man in the ass, but I used their ignorance to ensure my luxury. Moreover I learned to walk with my master on my back, and to run at a trot which was most comfortable and scarcely felt by my rider. I had expensive trappings and was caparisoned in purples; my bridle was ornamented with silver and gold, and I had hanging to me bells which tinkled out melodiously.

  [49] Our master, Menecles, had, as I said, come there from Thessalonica; he had done so because he had promised to give his native city a gladiatorial show. The gladiators were already in training for the fight and the time to set out had come. We left at dawn, and I carried my master whenever it was a rough part of the road and difficult for the carriages to cross. When we reached Thessalonica, the whole town rushed to enjoy the spectacle and to see me; for I had been preceded from afar by the fame of the many roles I played and my human skill in dancing and wrestling. However it was only to his most distinguished fellow-citizens that my master exhibited me over the wine, regaling his guests with these amazing comic acts of mine. [50] My keeper found a source of considerable income in me; for he locked me in a room, and kept me standing there, and would exact a fee before opening the door to those who wished to see me and my marvellous feats. They would bring in various eatables and particularly the things thought offensive to the stomach of an ass. These I would eat, so that by sharing meals with my master and the folk of the city within a few days I had already become wonderfully big and fat.

  One day a foreign lady of great wealth and considerable beauty came in to see me at a meal, and fell passionately in love with me, partly because she had seen I was a handsome ass, but also because my extraordinary accomplishments made her eager to have intercourse with me. She spoke to my keeper, promising him a substantial bribe if he would allow her to sleep the night with me. As he did not care whether she would get anything out of me or not, he accepted the bribe. [51] When it was now evening and our master had dismissed us from the dining-room, we returned to our sleeping quarters to find that the woman had long been ensconced in my bed. Soft pillows had been provided for her, bedding brought in and a bed was all ready for us on the floor. Then the lady’s servants settled for the night somewhere near at hand outside the room, while inside she lit a large, bright lamp. Then she stripped, stood stark naked beside the lamp, poured out ointment from an alabaster vase and rubbed it on. Then she rubbed ointment from the vase over me as well, smearing it particularly thickly over my nose. Then she kissed me, spoke to me as if I was her beloved and a human, took me by the halter and dragged me on to the bed. I needed no invitation; I was half-soused with much old wine, my skin was excited by the ointment, and I saw that she was a beautiful wench in every particular. I lay down, but was most uncertain how to mount the woman; for ever since I had become an ass, I had had no intercourse even of the normal asinine kind, nor had I had anything to do with a female ass. Moreover I was beset by an inordinate fear that she would be too small for me and would be torn asunder, while I would have a fine penalty to pay as her murderer. I didn’t know that I needn’t have feared, for she encouraged me with many kisses and passionate ones at that, and when she saw that I could not hold myself back, she lay beside me as though I was a man, embraced me, lifted me in and received the full extent of my member. I, poor coward, was still afraid, and was gently drawing myself away, but she clung to my member, so that it could not withdraw and followed it as it retreated. Once I was absolutely convinced that I needed to do something more to ensure her pleasure and enjoyment, I served her thereafter without fear, considering myself no worse than Pasiphae’s lover. The woman was so ready for love and so insatiable for the pleasures of copulation that she devoted the whole night to me.

  [52] At daybreak she got up and left, arranging with my keeper to pay the same fee for the same privileges that night. As he wished to enrich himself from my attainments and at the same time to show his master a fresh trick of mine, he locked me up with her, and she overworked me terribly. One day my keeper went to my master to report on my feat, pretending he himself had taught me it, and, when it was now evening, unknown to me brought him to our bedroom, and through a chink in the door showed me bedded inside with the wench. Delighted with the spectacle, he conceived the desire of exhibiting me doing this in public and told him to keep it a secret, “so that,” he said, “on the day of the show we may introduce him in the amphitheatre with a condemned woman, and he will mount her before the eyes of everyone.” Then they brought in to me a woman condemned to be killed by the animals, and told her to make advances to me and fondle me.

  [53] Then finally when the day came for my master to show his munificence, they decided to take me to the amphitheatre. When I entered, I found a huge couch made of Indian tortoise-shell and inlaid with gold. On this they made me lie and the woman lie on it by my side. Then they put us on a trolley, wheeled us into the arena and deposited us in the middle. The people raised a loud shout and all clapped their hands to applaud me; a table was placed at one side with many of the dainties which epicures have at dinner. Handsome wine-boys stood beside us, serving us wine in golden goblets. My keeper stood behind me and told me to eat. But I was not only ashamed to be reclining in the amphitheatre but also afraid that a bear or lion would leap on me.

  [54] Meanwhile a man passed carrying flowers, amongst which I noticed fresh rose-petals. No longer afraid I leapt to my feet and jumped off the couch. They all thought I was standing up to dance, but I went through the flowers one by one, picked out the roses and gulped them down. While
they were still watching me in astonishment, that bestial appearance left me and vanished, the ass of old disappeared, and Lucius himself was standing naked on the spot I occupied. All were amazed at this strange, unexpected spectacle and raised a terrible din. The audience were divided into two opinions. Some thought that I should be burnt to death immediately as a scoundrel versed in terrible spells and able to adopt many shapes; the others advocated waiting and learning what I had to say before deciding on the matter. I rushed up to the governor of the province, who was among the spectators, and told him from down there that a Thessalian witch, the slave of a Thessalian witch, had anointed me with a magic unguent and made me into an ass, and I begged him to arrest me and keep me in custody till I convinced him of the truth of my story.

  [55] The governor said : “ Tell us your name and that of your parents and any relatives you claim to have, and that of your city.”

  I replied: “ My father is ... , my name is Lucius, and that of my brother is Gaius, and the other two names we share with our father. I write histories and other prose works, while he is an elegiac poet and a skilled prophet. Our native city is Patrae in Achaia.”

  When the governor heard this, he said: “You are the son of folk most dear to me, friends who have welcomed me in their home and honoured me with gifts. I know you are absolutely truthful if you are their son.” Then he leapt up from his seat, embraced me and kissed me many times and took me to his own home. Meanwhile, too, my brother had arrived with money and many other things for me, and the governor publicly declared that he was releasing me. We went down to the sea, looked for a ship and put our baggage aboard.

  [56] I then thought it best to visit the lady who had loved me when an ass, telling myself she would think me handsomer now I was in human form. She gladly welcomed me, because, I suppose, she was delighted at this extraordinary situation, and she begged me to dine and sleep with her. I agreed, for I thought I would deserve the jealousy of heaven if upon becoming human the ass who had received affection took excessive airs and scorned her who had loved him. I dined with her, anointed myself richly with sweet oil and garlanded myself with roses, the dear flowers which had restored me to human form. When the night was now advanced and it was time to go to bed, I got up and stripped as though conferring a great favour and stood naked before her, imagining that I would please her still more by the contrast I formed with the ass. But when she saw that every part of me was human, she spat at me and said, “Get to blazes away from me and my house; don’t sleep anywhere near me.”

  When I asked what heinous offence I’d committed, she replied, “By heavens, I didn’t love you but the ass in you and he was the one I slept with, not you. I thought that, if nothing else, you would still have kept trailing around with you that mighty symbol of the ass. But you have come to me transformed from that handsome, useful creature into a monkey.”

  She immediately called her servants and had me carried out of the house aloft on their backs. I was thrust out of the door and there I lay naked in my fine garlands and unguents, with only the bare earth to embrace. At crack of dawn I ran naked to the ship and told my brother of my ridiculous misadventure. Then we sailed away from that city on a favouring wind and within a few days I reached my native city. Then I sacrificed and dedicated offerings to the gods who had saved me, now that after so very long and with such difficulty I had escaped, not from the dog’s bottom of the fable, by Zeus, but from the curiosity of an ass.

  ON FUNERALS (ON MOURNING) — Περὶ Πένθους

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

  OF MOURNING

  The behaviour of the average man in a time of bereavement, his own language and the remarks offered him by way of consolation, are things that will reward the attention of a curious observer. The mourner takes it for granted that a terrible blow has fallen both upon himself and upon the object of his lamentations: yet for all he knows to the contrary (and here I appeal to Pluto and Persephone) the departed one, so far from being entitled to commiseration, may find himself in improved circumstances. The feelings of the bereaved party are in fact guided solely by custom and convention. The procedure in such cases — but no: let me first state the popular beliefs on the subject of death itself; we shall then understand the motives for the elaborate ceremonial with which it is attended.

  The vulgar (as philosophers call the generality of mankind), implicitly taking as their text-book the fictions of Homer and Hesiod and other poets, assume the existence of a deep subterranean hole called Hades; spacious, murky, and sunless, but by some mysterious means sufficiently lighted to render all its details visible. Its king is a brother of Zeus, one Pluto; whose name — so an able philologer assures me — contains a complimentary allusion to his ghostly wealth. As to the nature of his government, and the condition of his subjects, the authority allotted to him extends over all the dead, who, from the moment that they come under his control, are kept in unbreakable fetters; Shades are on no account permitted to return to Earth; to this rule there have been only two or three exceptions since the beginning of the world, and these were made for very urgent reasons. His realm is encompassed by vast rivers, whose very names inspire awe: Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon, and the like. Most formidable of all, and first to arrest the progress of the new-comer, is Acheron, that lake which none may pass save by the ferryman’s boat; it is too deep to be waded, too broad for the swimmer, and even defies the flight of birds deceased. At the very beginning of the descent is a gate of adamant: here Aeacus, a nephew of the king, stands on guard. By his side is a three-headed dog, a grim brute; to new arrivals, however, he is friendly enough, reserving his bark, and the yawning horror of his jaws, for the would-be runaway. On the inner shore of the lake is a meadow, wherein grows asphodel; here, too, is the fountain that makes war on memory, and is hence called Lethe. All these particulars the ancients would doubtless obtain from the Thessalian queen Alcestis and her fellow-countryman Protesilaus, from Theseus the son of Aegeus, and from the hero of the Odyssey. These witnesses (whose evidence is entitled to our most respectful acceptance) did not, as I gather, drink of the waters of Lethe; because then they would not have remembered. According to them, the supreme power is entirely in the hands of Pluto and Persephone, who, however, are assisted in the labours of government by a host of underlings: such are the Furies, the Pains, the Fears; such too is Hermes, though he is not always in attendance. Judicial powers are vested in two satraps or viceroys, Minos and Rhadamanthus, both Cretans, and both sons of Zeus. By them all good and just men who have followed the precepts of virtue are sent off in large detachments to form colonies, as it were, in the Elysian Plain, and there to lead the perfect life. Evil-doers, on the contrary, are handed over to the Furies, who conduct them to the place of the wicked, where they are punished in due proportion to their iniquities. What a variety of torments is there presented! The rack, the fire, the gnawing vulture; here Ixion spins upon his wheel, there Sisyphus rolls his stone. I have not forgotten Tantalus; but he stands elsewhere, stands parched on the Lake’s very brink, like to die of thirst, poor wretch! Then there is the numerous class of neutral characters; these wander about the meadow; formless phantoms, that evade the touch like smoke. It seems that they depend for their nourishment upon the libations and victims offered by us upon their tombs; accordingly, a Shade who has no surviving friends or relations passes a hungry time of it in the lower world.

  So profoundly have the common people been impressed with these doctrines that, when a man dies, the first act of his relations is to put a penny into his mouth, that he may have wherewithal to pay the ferryman: they do not stop to inquire what is the local currency, whether Attic or Macedonian or Aeginetan; nor does it occur to them how much better it would be for the departed one if the fare were not forthcoming, — because then the ferryman would decline to take him, and he would be sent back into the living world. Lest the Stygian Lake should prove inadequate to the requirements of ghostly toilets, the corpse is next washed, anoint
ed with the choicest unguents to arrest the progress of decay, crowned with fresh flowers, and laid out in sumptuous raiment; an obvious precaution, this last; it would not do for the deceased to take a chill on the journey, nor to exhibit himself to Cerberus with nothing on. Lamentation follows. The women wail; men and women alike weep and beat their breasts and rend their hair and lacerate their cheeks; clothes are also torn on the occasion, and dust sprinkled on the head. The survivors are thus reduced to a more pitiable condition than the deceased: while they in all probability are rolling about and dashing their heads on the ground, he, bravely attired and gloriously garlanded, reposes gracefully upon his lofty bier, adorned as it were for some pageant. The mother — nay, it is the father, as likely as not, — now advances from among the relatives, falls upon the bier (to heighten the dramatic effect, we will suppose its occupant to be young and handsome), and utters wild and meaningless ejaculations; the corpse cannot speak, otherwise it might have something to say in reply. His son — the father exclaims, with a mournful emphasis on every word, — his beloved son is no more; he is gone; torn away before his hour was come, leaving him alone to mourn; he has never married, never begotten children, never been on the field of battle, never laid hand to the plough, never reached old age; never again will he make merry, never again know the joys of love, never, alas! tipple at the convivial board among his comrades. And so on, and so on. He imagines his son to be still coveting these things, and coveting them in vain. But this is nothing: time after time men have been known to slaughter horses upon the tomb, and concubines and pages; to burn clothes and other finery, or bury it, in the idea that the deceased will find a profitable use for such things in the lower world. Now the afflicted senior, in delivering the tragic utterances I have suggested above, and others of the same kind, is not, as I understand it, consulting the interests of his son (who he knows will not hear him, though he shout louder than Stentor), nor yet his own; he is perfectly aware of his sentiments, and has no occasion to bellow them into his own ear. The natural conclusion is, that this tomfoolery is for the benefit of the spectators; and all the time he has not an idea where his son is, or what may be his condition; he cannot even have reflected upon human life generally, or he would know that the loss of it is no such great matter. Let us imagine that the son has obtained leave from Aeacus and Pluto to take a peep into the daylight, and put a stop to these parental maunderings. ‘Confound it, sir,’ he might exclaim, ‘what is the noise about? You bore me. Enough of hair-plucking and face- scratching. When you call me an ill-fated wretch, you abuse a better man than yourself, and a more fortunate. Why are you so sorry for me? Is it because I am not a bald, bent, wrinkled old cripple like yourself? Is it because I have not lived to be a battered wreck, nor seen a thousand moons wax and wane, only to make a fool of myself at the last before a crowd? Can your sapience point to any single convenience of life, of which we are deprived in the lower world? I know what you will say: clothes and good dinners, wine and women, without which you think I shall be inconsolable. Are you now to learn that freedom from hunger and thirst is better than meat and drink, and insensibility to cold better than plenty of clothes? Come, I see you need enlightenment; I will show you how lamentation ought to be done. Make a fresh start, thus: Alas, my son! Hunger and thirst and cold are his no longer! He is gone, gone beyond the reach of sickness; he fears not fever any more, nor enemies nor tyrants. Never again, my son, shall love disturb your peace, impair your health, make hourly inroads on your purse; oh, heavy change! Never can you reach contemptible old age, never be an eyesore to your juniors! — Confess, now, that my lamentation has the advantage of yours, in veracity, as in absurdity.