Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  45. But, after he has toiled zealously through all the lessons that teach the soul philosophy, and his intellect has had its fill of these benefits of a standard education, he perfects his body with noble exercises. For he interests himself in Thessalian horses. Soon, after he has broken in his youth as one does a colt, he practises in peace the pursuits of war, throwing javelins and hurling spears with unerring aim. Next come the glistening wrestlingschools, where beneath the heat of the mid-day sun his developing body is covered in dust; then comes the sweat, that pours forth from his toils in the contest, and next a quick bath and a sober meal suited to the activities that soon follow. For again he has his schoolmasters and records of deeds of old with hints for the study of such questions as what hero was brave, who is cited for his wisdom, or what men cherished justice and temperance. Such are the virtues which he uses to irrigate his soul while still tender, and, when evening brings an end to his activities, he metes out the tribute due to the necessities of his stomach, and then sleeps the sweeter, enjoying a rest that none could grudge after his exertions during the day.

  46. Who would not fall in love with such a youth? Whose eyesight could be so blind, whose mental processes so stunted? How could one fail to love him who is a Hermes in the wrestling-school, an Apollo with the lyre, a horseman to rival Castor, and one who strives after the virtues of the gods with a mortal body? For my part, ye gods of heaven, I pray that it may for ever be my lot in life to sit opposite my dear one and hear close to me his sweet voice, to go out when he goes out and share every activity with him. And so a lover might well pray that his cherished one should journey to old age without any sorrow through a life free from stumbling or swerving, without having experienced at all any malicious spite of Fortune. But, if in accordance with the law governing the human body, illness should lay its hand on him, I shall ail with him when he is weak, and, when he puts out to sea through stormy waves, I shall sail with him. And, should a violent tyrant bind him in chains, I shall put the same fetters around myself. All who hate him will be my enemies and those well disposed to him shall I hold dear. Should I see bandits or foemen rushing upon him, I would arm myself even beyond my strength, and if he dies, I shall not bear to live. I shall give final instructions to those I love next best after him to pile up a common tomb for both of us, to unite my bones with his and not to keep even our dumb ashes apart from each other.

  47. Nor will you find my love for those who deserve it to be the first to write such things; rather were these the laws given by the wellnigh divine wisdom of the heroes, who till their dying day breathed love of friendship. Phocis united Orestes to Pylades right from their infancy. Taking the lovegod as the mediator of their emotions for each other, they sailed together as it were on the same vessel of life. Both did away with Clytemnestra as though both were sons of Agamemnon, by both of them was Aegisthus slain. Pylades it was who suffered the more from the Avengers who hounded Orestes, and he stood trial along with him in court. Nor did they restrict their affectionate friendship to the limits of Hellas, but sailed to Scythia at the very ends of the earth, one of them afflicted, the other ministering to him. At any rate, as soon as they set foot on the land of the Tauri, the Fury of matricides was there to welcome the strangers, and, when the natives stood around them, the one was struck to the ground by his usual madness and lay there, but Pylades

  “Did wipe away the foam and tend his frame

  And shelter him with fine well-woven robe”’

  thus showing the feelings not merely of a lover but also of a father. When at any rate it had been decided that, while one remained to be killed, the other should depart for Mycenae to bear a letter, each wished to remain for the sake of the other, considering that he himself lived in the survival of his friend. But Orestes refused to take the letter, claiming Pylades was the fitter person to do so, and showed himself almost to be the lover rather than the beloved.

  “For ’tis a burden sore to me if he be slain,

  For I am captain of this enterprise.”

  And shortly afterwards he says

  “The message give to him,

  For him I’ll send to Argos; he will thrive

  But whoso will may take my life.”

  48. This too is the case generally. For, when the honourable love inbred in us from childhood matures to the manly age that is now capable of reason, the object of our longstanding affection gives love in return and it’s difficult to detect which is the lover of which, since the image of the lover’s tenderness has been reflected from the loved one as though from a mirror. Why then do you censure this as being an exotic indulgence of our times, though it is an ordinance enacted by divine laws and a heritage that has come down to us? We have been glad to receive it and we tend its shrine with a pure heart. For that man is truly blessed according to the verdict of the wise,

  “Whoso hath youthful lads and whole-hooved steeds;

  And that old man doth age with greatest ease

  Whom youths do love.”

  The teaching of Socrates and his famous tribunal of virtue were honoured by the Delphic tripod, for the Pythian god uttered an oracle of truth,

  “Of all men Socrates the wisest is.”

  For along with the other discoveries with which he benefited human life did he not also welcome love of boys as the greatest of boons?

  49. One should love youths as Alcibiades was loved by Socrates who slept like a father with him under the same cloak. And for my part I would most gladly add to the end of my discourse the words of Callimachus as a message to all:

  “May you who cast your longing eyes on youths

  So love the young as Erchius bid you do,

  That in its men your city may be blessed.”

  Knowing this, young men, be temperate when you approach virtuous boys. Do not for the sake of a brief pleasure squander lasting affection, nor till you’ve reached manhood put on show counterfeit feelings of affection, but worship Heavenly Love and keep your emotions constant from boyhood to old .age. For those who love thus, having nothing disgraceful on their conscience, find their lifetime sweetest and after their death their glorious report goes out to all men. If it’s right to believe the children of philosophy, the heavens await men with these ideals after their stay on earth. By entering a better life at death they have immortality as the reward for their virtue.”

  50. After Callicratidas had delivered this very spirited sermon, Charicles tried to speak for a second time but I stopped him; for it was now time to return to the ship. They pressed me to pronounce my opinion, but, after weighing up for a short time the speeches of both, I said: “Your words, my friends, do not seem to me to he hurried, thoughtless improvisations, but give clear proof of continued and, by heaven, concentrated thought. For of all the possible arguments there’s hardly one you’ve left for another to use. And, though your experience of the world is great, it is surpassed by your eloquence, so that I for one could wish, if it were possible, to become Theramenes, the Turncoat, so that you could both be victorious and walk off on equal terms. However, since I do not think you’ll let the matter be, and I myself am resolved not to be exercised on the same topic during the voyage, I shall give the verdict that has struck me as the fairest.

  51. Marriage is a boon and a blessing to men when it meets with good fortune, while the love of boys, that pays court to the hallowed dues of friendship, I consider to be the privilege only of philosophy. Therefore all men should marry, but let only the wise be permitted to love boys, for perfect virtue grows least of all among women. And you must not be angry, Charicles, if Corinth yields to Athens.”

  52. After giving this decision hurriedly in a few brief words out of regard for my friend, I rose to my feet. For I saw that he was utterly dejected, almost like one condemned to death. But the Athenian leapt up joyously with a gleeful expression on his face and started to stalk about in front of us most triumphantly, just as if, one would have thought, he had defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis. I derived a further b
enefit from my verdict when he entertained us to a magnificent feast to celebrate his victory. For his behaviour had in other ways, too, shown him to be generous of spirit. As for Charicles, I consoled him quietly by repeatedly expressing my great admiration for his eloquence and his able defence of the more awkward cause.

  53. Well, thus ended our stay in Cnidus and our conversation in the sanctuary of the goddess with its combination of gay earnestness and cultured fun. But now, Theomnestus, you who have evoked these old memories of mine must tell me how you would have decided, if you had been judge.

  THEOMNESTUS

  By heaven, do you think I’m a Melitides or Coroebus to cast a vote in opposition to your just verdict? For through my intense enjoyment of your narrative I thought I was in Cnidus, almost imagining this small chamber to be that temple. But nevertheless, seeing that nothing said on a festive day is unseemly, and any jesting, even if carried to excess, is thought in keeping with the holiday spirit, I must say I admired the solemnity of the very highbrow speeches evoked by love of boys, except that I didn’t think it very agreeable to spend all day with a youth suffering the punishment of Tantalus, and, though the waters of beauty are, as it were, almost lapping against my eyes, to endure thirst when one can help oneself to water. For it’s not enough to look at the loved one or to listen to his voice as he sits facing you, but love has, as it were, made itself a ladder of pleasure, and has for its first step that of sight, so that it may see the beloved, and, once it beholds, it wishes to approach and to touch. If it only touches with but the fingertips, the waves of enjoyment run into the whole body. Once easily achieving this, love attempts the third stage and tries a kiss, not making it a violent one at first, but lightly bringing lips close to lips so that they part before completing full contact, without leaving the slightest cause for suspicion. Thus it adjusts itself to the success gained and melts into ever more importunate embraces, sometimes gently opening the mouth and leaving neither hand idle. For open embraces of the beloved when clothed give mutual pleasure; or else the furtive hand wantonly glides down into the bosom and squeezes for a moment the breasts swollen past their normal size and makes a smooth sweep to grasp with the fingers the belly throbbing full spate with passion, and thereafter the early down of adolescence, and

  “But why recount the thing one should not tell?

  Once love has gained so much liberty it begins warmer work. Then it makes a start with the thighs and, to quote the comic poet, “strikes the target.”

  54. May I for my part find it my lot to love boys in this way. But may the airy talkers and those who raise their philosophic brows temple-high and even higher, beguile the ignorant with the speciousness of their solemn phrases. For Socrates was as devoted to love as anyone and Alcibiades, once he had lain down beneath the same mantle with him, did not rise unassailed. Don’t be surprised at that. For not even the affection of Achilles for Patroclus was limited to having him seated opposite “waiting until Aeacides should cease his song.” No, pleasure was the mediator even of their friendship. At any rate, when Achilles was lamenting the death of Patroclus, his unrestrained feelings made him burst out with the truth and say,

  “The converse of our thighs my tears do mourn

  With duteous piety “

  Those whom the Greeks call “revellers” I think to be nothing but ostentatious lovers. Perhaps someone will assert this is a shameful thing to say, but, by Aphrodite of Cnidus, it’s the truth.

  LYCINUS

  My dear Theomnestus, I won’t tolerate your laying the foundation of a third discourse, for this one should hear only on a holiday, and further talk should be banished far from my ears. Let us not linger any longer, but go out to the market-place. For it’s now the time when the fire should be lit in honour of Heracles. It’s a pleasant sight and reminds those present of what he suffered on Oeta.

  THE MISTAKEN CRITIC — Ψευδολογιστής

  Translated by A. M. Harmon

  A PERSONAL attack resembling the Professor of Rhetoric and the Ignorant Book-Collector, but outdoing both of them in savagery. Its motive was not so much to show up a vicious citizen as to avenge a personal insult. In passing the man, Lucian had expressed his opinion of him loudly enough to be overheard (which was doubtless his intention). He used a word that as an epithet was obsolete, and not conspicuously sanctioned by good use. Consequently, the man laughed, and ridiculed his language, which was a fatal mistake; for Lucian, always sensitive about his diction, as witness his On a Slip of the Tongue in Salutation (Vol. VI), was thereby provoked to pay him back with interest.

  For raw, unsparing satire like this, Lucian had plenty of precedent not only in the iambics of Archilochus and Semonides, to which, with the scazons of Hipponax, he himself alludes, and in Old Comedy, but in melic poetry (not only Timocreon of Rhodes, but Anacreon). Of its use in the orators, where it conspicuously serves ulterior purposes, Aeschines against Timarchus is the classic example. After the orators it was the Cynics, particularly the street-corner type, who kept the tradition of outspokenness alive; Lucian’s Demonax is full of illustrations.

  That the name of Lucian’s victim was Timarchus is, I think, an erroneous assumption from the nickname Atimarchus that was given him at Athens (§ 27; see the note there). He had been an actor and a teacher, and was then a sophist. A Syrian by birth, he had lived in Antioch, Egypt, Italy, and Greece. The piece was written soon after the incident occurred, apparently in Ephesus, where the sophist was then living. There is nothing in its content to fix its date.

  THE MISTAKEN CRITIC; OR, A DISCOURSE ON THE WORD NEFANDOUS

  THAT you did not know the word nefandous is surely clear to everyone. When I had said of you that you were like a nefandous day — for I well remember comparing your character to a day of that kind — how could you, with reference to that word, have made the stricture that I was barbarous in my speech, unless you were wholly unacquainted with it? I shall teach you presently what nefandous means; but I say to you now what Archilochus once said: “You have caught a cicada by the wing.” Have you ever heard of a writer of iambic verses named Archilochus, a Parian by birth, a man absolutely independent and given to frankness, who did not hesitate at all to use insulting language, no matter how much pain he was going to inflict upon those who would be exposed to the gall of his iambics? Well, when he was abused by someone of that type, he said that the man had caught a cicada by the wing, likening himself, Archilochus, to the cicada, which by nature is vociferous, even without any compulsion, but when it is caught by the wing, cries out still more lustily. “Unlucky man,” said he, “what is your idea in provoking against yourself a vociferous poet, in search of motives and themes for his iambics?”

  In these same terms I threaten you, not likening myself to Archilochus (how could I? I am far indeed from that!), but aware that you have done in your life hundreds of things which deserve iambics. Even Archilochus himself, I think, would not have been able to cope with them, though he invited both Simonides and Hipponax to take a hand with him in treating just one of your bad traits, so childish in every sort of iniquity have you made Orodocides and Lycambes and Bupalus, their butts, appear. Probably it was one of the gods who brought the smile to your lips on that occasion at my use of the word nefandous, in order that you might become more notorious than a Scythian for being absolutely uneducated and ignorant of these obvious matters of common knowledge, and that you might afford a reasonable excuse for attacking you to an independent man who knows you thoroughly from home and will not refrain from telling — I should say, heralding abroad — all that you do by night and by day even now, in addition to those many incidents of your past.

  And yet it is idle, no doubt, and superfluous to deal frankly with you by way of education; for in the first place you yourself could never improve in response to my censure, any more than a tumble-bug could be persuaded not to roll those balls of his any longer, when once he has become used to them. In the second place, I do not believe that anyone exists who still
is ignorant of your brazen performances and of the sins that you, an old man, have committed against yourself. You are not to that extent secure or unobserved in your iniquity. There is no need of anyone to strip away your lion’s skin that you may be revealed a donkey, unless perhaps someone has just come to us from the Hyperboreans, or is sufficiently Cymaean not to know, as soon as he sees you, that you are the most unbridled of all asses, without waiting to hear you bray. Your doings have been noised abroad so long a time, so far ahead of me, so universally and so repeatedly; and you have no slight reputation for them, surpassing Ariphrades, surpassing the Sybarite Hemitheon, surpassing the notorious Chian, Bastas, that adept in similar matters.

  Nevertheless, I must speak of them, even if I shall seem to be telling stale news, in order that I may not bear the blame of being the only one who does not know about them. But no! We must call in one of Menander’s Prologues, Exposure, a god devoted to Truth and Frankness, by no means the least notable of the characters that appear on the stage, disliked only by you and your sort, who fear his tongue because he knows everything and tells in plain language all that he knows about you. It would indeed be delightful if he should prove willing to oblige us by coming forward and telling the spectators the entire argument of the play.