The foot, the knee, hip-joint, the ankles, groins and thighs,
Hands, shoulder-blades, and arms, the elbows and the wrists
It eats, devours, burns, quells, inflames and softens up,
Until the goddess bids the pain to flee away.
GOUTY MAN
Then was I one of those initiate,
But knew it not? Then, goddess, friendly come,
And with thy devotees I too shall raise
Thy hymns, and sing the song of gouty men.
CHORUS
Still and windless be the air,
Hushed he lips of every gouty man.
Lo, the goddess fond of bed
Staff-supported to her altar comes!
Welcome, gentlest far of gods,
Come, I pray, with kind and smiling face,
Blessing all thy followers,
Giving to their toils a swift release,
Now that days of spring are here.
GOUT
What mortal born on earth hut knows of me,
Resistless Gout, the mistress of men’s toils?
Me no sweet reek of incense can appease
Nor blood of victims burnt in sacrifice
Nor shrine whose walls with idols rich are hung.
Me Paean cannot worst with medicine,
Though doctor he to all the gods of heaven,
Nor yet his learned son, Asclepius.
For ever since the race of men was born,
They all essay to exorcise my might
By ever mixing drugs most cunningly.
Each man a different wile against me tries.
They bruise their plantain and their celery,
And lettuce leaves and purslane from the lea,
Some horehound grind, and others pondweed try;
Some nettles crush, and others comfrey use;
Some duckweed from the ponds against me bring,
Or carrots boiled or leaves of peaches use,
Or henbane, poppy, Colchicum, grenades,
Or fleawort, frankincense, or sodium,
The root of hellebore, or mixed with wine
The fenugreek, rissole, glue, or pulse,
Or cypress sap, or finest barley meal,
Boiled cabbage leaves, gypsum from Paros brought,
Man’s excrement or turds of mountain goat,
Or mash of beans, or crop from Assian stone;
And weasels, field-mice, lizards, toads they boil,
The frog, hyena, antelope, or fox.
What metal has not been by mortals tried?
What juice? What exudation from a tree?
All creatures’ bones, sinews and skins they try,
Their fat, blood, marrow, urine, dung or milk.
Some potions drink of four ingredients,
Or else of eight, but more men seven use.
Some purge themselves with sacred medicine,
Others are mocked by chants impostors sell,
And other fools fall for the spells of Jews,
While others look for cure to Cyrrane.
But all these shifts I curse and treat with scorn,
And those who use them and would test my strength
I e’er assail with greater wrath by far;
But those whose will is not opposed to mine
Do find me kind of heart and well-disposed.
For he that shareth in my mystic rites
Learns first and that right soon to curb his tongue,
Delighting all by choosing well his words.
And all who see him laugh and clap their hands,
When to the baths he’s borne on others’ backs.
For I am Ruin, she whom Homer sang,
Who walketh o’er men’s heads with dainty steps,
But to the most of men my name is Gout,
Who come to make their feet my spoil and prey.
But come, all devotees of these my rites,
Honour with hymns the goddess none can worst.
CHORUS
Mighty Maid with heart of steel,
Goddess dreadful in thy wrath,
Hear the cries of thine own priests.
Prosperous Gout, how great thy power!
Dread art thou to Jove’s swift shaft,
Fearsome thou to Ocean’s waves
And to Hades king below;
Bandage-loving Sickbed Queen,
Speed-impairing Joint-Tormentor,
Ankle-burning Timid-Stepper,
Pestle-fearing, Knee-Fire Sleepless,
Loving chalkstones on the knuckles,
Knee-deformer, Gout’s thy name.
MESSENGER
Mistress, ’tis well thy feet thee hither bring.
No empty message do I bid thee hear,
For cometh with my words accomplishment.
For, as you bade, I went with gentle pace
To search each town and look in every house
With zeal to learn if any scorned thy might.
The other men I saw were meek of heart
When conquered by thy mighty hands, my queen,
But these two were right bold and impudent,
Who told their fellows all and swore on oath
No longer was thy power to he revered,
But they would banish thee from lives of men.
Therefore I’ve bound their feet with fetters strong.
Four days I’ve sped, a quarter mile I’ve come.
GOUT
What haste you’ve made, my messenger most swift!
Say what the pathless land whose hounds you’ve left.
Oh speak out clear that I may know at once.
MESSENGER
A five-runged ladder first of all I left
Whose loosely-fitted wooden limbs did shake,
And next a beaten floor awaited me,
A pavement hard and firm that hurt my feet.
O’er this I sped in haste with painful steps,
And then I came upon a gravel path
With sharp and pointed stones most hard to cross.
Then next a smooth and slippery road I met;
Forward I pressed though mud clung to my steps
Making my strengthless ankles drag and trail.
In crossing this my limbs did drench my feet
With sweat and drained away my ebbing strength.
Then wearied in each limb I found myself
Where was a highway broad but dangerous;
For carriages to right and left of me
Did force me on and make me run in haste.
And I did nimbly lift my sluggish feet
To dart aside and seek the wayside strait,
To let a cart rush by with flying wheel,
For, mystic thine, I could not run with speed.
GOUT
A worthy enterprise was this, good sir,
And well accomplished. And I your zeal
Shall now reward with well-earned privilege.
And may this gift delight your heart right well.
For three whole years your pains will lighter be.
But, cursed villains hateful to the gods,
Say who are ye and what your lineage,
That dare to pit yourselves with mighty Gout,
Whose strength e’en Cronus’ son cannot subdue.
Speak, knaves; for even of the demigods
Great numbers I’ve o’ercome, as sages know.
Priam, though Doughty called, had gouty feet;
Achilles, Peleus’ son, did die of gout;
Bellerophon Gout’s trials had to face,
And gouty too was Thebes’ king Oedipus,
And Plisthenes, from Pelops sprung, had gout;
And gouty general too was Poeas’ son;
Another Doughty-Footed one Thessalians led,
Who, when Protesilaus had been killed,
Though gouty and in pain, did lead his host.
The king of Ithaca, Laertes’ son,
Was slain by me and not by spine of fish.
For know, ye luckless ones, with dearth of glee
You’ll get a punishment to fit your crime.
DOCTORS
We Syrians are, Damascus men by birth,
But forced by hunger and by poverty,
We wander far afield o’er land and sea.
We have an ointment here, our fathers’ gift,
With which we comfort woes of sufferers.
GOUT
What ointment’s this? Say what’s your stockin-trade.
DOCTOR
By secret, mystic oath my lips are sealed,
And by my dying father’s last command,
Who bade me secret keep this mighty cure,
Whose power can quell e’en fiercest wrath of thine.
GOUT
Then, cursed ones whose death will bitter be,
Is there on earth a drug of such effect,
An ointment potent which can check my might?
But come, upon these terms let us agree;
Let’s test this mighty remedy to find
If it or if my burning pain prevails.
Come, grim-faced ones, from every side fly here,
Ye torments, comrades of my frenzied rites,
Approach, come near, I say; do thou inflame
Their feet from heel to utmost tip of toe;
Their ankles thou assail; and from their thighs
Down to their knees make thou rank poison flow;
And ye must twist and knot their fingers all.
PAINS
Look, all we’ve done, just as you’ve bidden us.
The luckless men lie shrieking loud and clear
From our attacks which torture every limb.
GOUT
Now, strangers, come; more surely let us learn
If ye find help from rubbing on this salve.
For, if it clearly counteracts my power,
I’ll leave this world, and disappear from sight
Deep down to utmost depths of Tartarus.
Let’s see if salve applied relieves your pain.
DOCTOR
Alas, alas, I’m utterly destroyed!
I burn in every limb from bane untold.
Not such the thunderbolt that Zeus doth poise,
Not such the furious ocean’s raging waves,
And lesser too the whirlwind’s mighty force!
Do jagged teeth of Cerberus me rend?
Or does Echidna’s venom gnaw my flesh?
Or is my raiment steeped in Nessus’ gore?
Have mercy, queen, for neither salve of mine
Nor other remedy can quell thy course.
All votes agree you conquer all mankind.
GOUT
Ye torments, cease. Relax their suffering
For now they’re sorry that they challenged me.
Let all men know that I alone of gods
Do not relent or yield to remedies.
CHORUS
Mighty though Salmoneus was, he could not rival thundering Zeus,
But was slain and smitten in the heart by smoking thunderbolt;
Nor brought rivalry with Phoebus joy to Satyr Marsyas;
All his music now is where his skin on rustling pinetree hangs;
GOUT
And, for rivalling Leto, mother Niobe will ne’er forget her grief,
But she mourneth still and poureth floods of tears on Sipylus;
And Maeonian maid Arachne thought herself Athene’s match,
But she lost her shape and still to-day must spin and spin her web;
For men’s daring boldness cannot match the wrath of blessed gods,
Such as Zeus or Leto or Athene or the Pythian seer.
May the pain you bring be gentle, universal goddess Gout,
Light and mild and stingless, hurting little, free from pain,
Easily borne and swiftly ceasing, weak and feeble, ready for a stroll.
Many sorts one will find there are of luckless men;
But let those who have gout find relief from their woes
By being schooled to endure and accustomed to pain.
In this way cheerfully you who share this our lot
Will forget all your pain,
Seeing that what we thought has not been brought about,
While a way for what we not at all did expect
Has been found by the god. So let each sufferer
Learn to bear mockery and submit to men’s taunts.
For this thing is of just such a kind.
HERMOTIMUS — Ἑρμότιμος ἢ Περὶ Αἱρέσεων
Translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler
HERMOTIMUS, OR THE RIVAL PHILOSOPHIES
Lycinus. Hermotimus
Ly. Good morning, Hermotimus; I guess by your book and the pace you are going at that you are on your way to lecture, and a little late. You were conning over something as you walked, your lips working and muttering, your hand flung out this way and that as you got a speech into order in your mind; you were doubtless inventing one of your crooked questions, or pondering some tricky problem; never a vacant mind, even in the streets; always on the stretch and in earnest, bent on advancing in your studies.
Her. I admit the impeachment; I was running over the details of what he said in yesterday’s lecture. One must lose no chance, you know; the Coan doctor [Footnote: Hippocrates] spoke so truly: ars longa, vita brevis. And what be referred to was only physic — a simpler matter. As to philosophy, not only will you never attain it, however long you study, unless you are wide awake all the time, contemplating it with intense eager gaze; the stake is so tremendous, too, — whether you shall rot miserably with the vulgar herd, or be counted among philosophers and reach Happiness.
Ly. A glorious prize, indeed! however, you cannot be far off it now, if one may judge by the time you have given to philosophy, and the extraordinary vigour of your long pursuit. For twenty years now, I should say, I have watched you perpetually going to your professors, generally bent over a book taking notes of past lectures, pale with thought and emaciated in body. I suspect you find no release even in your dreams, you are so wrapped up in the thing. With all this you must surely get hold of Happiness soon, if indeed you have not found it long ago without telling us.
Her. Alas, Lycinus, I am only just beginning to get an inkling of the right way. Very far off dwells Virtue, as Hesiod says, and long and steep and rough is the way thither, and travellers must bedew it with sweat.
Ly. And you have not yet sweated and travelled enough?
Her. Surely not; else should I have been on the summit, with nothing left between me and bliss; but I am only starting yet, Lycinus.
Ly. Ah, but Hesiod, your own authority, tells us, Well begun is half done; so we may safely call you half-way by this time.
Her. Not even there yet; that would indeed have been much.
Ly. Where shall we put you, then?
Her. Still on the lower slopes, just making an effort to get on; but it is slippery and rough, and needs a helping hand.
Ly. Well, your master can give you that; from his station on the summit, like Zeus in Homer with his golden cord, he can let you down his discourse, and therewith haul and heave you up to himself and to the Virtue which he has himself attained this long time.
Her. The very picture of what he is doing; if it depended on him alone, I should have been hauled up long ago; it is my part that is still wanting.
Ly. You must be of good cheer and keep a stout heart; gaze at the end of your climb and the Happiness at the top, and remember that he is working with you. What prospect does he hold out? when are you to be up? does he think you will be on the top next year — by the Great Mysteries, or the Panathenaea, say?
Her. Too soon, Lycinus.
Ly. By next Olympiad, then?
Her. All too short a time, even that, for habituation to Virtue and attainment of Happiness.
Ly. Say two Olympiads, then, for an outside estimate. You may fairly be found guilty of laziness, if you cannot ge
t it done by then; the time would allow you three return trips from the Pillars of Heracles to India, with a margin for exploring the tribes on the way instead of sailing straight and never stopping. How much higher and more slippery, pray, is the peak on which your Virtue dwells than that Aornos crag which Alexander stormed in a few days?
Her. There is no resemblance, Lycinus; this is not a thing, as you conceive it, to be compassed and captured quickly, though ten thousand Alexanders were to assault it; in that case, the sealers would have been legion. As it is, a good number begin the climb with great confidence, and do make progress, some very little indeed, others more; but when they get half-way, they find endless difficulties and discomforts, lose heart, and turn back, panting, dripping, and exhausted. But those who endure to the end reach the top, to be blessed thenceforth with wondrous days, looking down from their height upon the ants which are the rest of mankind.
Ly. Dear me, what tiny things you make us out — not so big as the Pygmies even, but positively grovelling on the face of the earth. I quite understand it; your thoughts are up aloft already. And we, the common men that walk the earth, shall mingle you with the Gods in our prayers; for you are translated above the clouds, and gone up whither you have so long striven.
Her. If but that ascent might be, Lycinus! but it is far yet.
Ly. But you have never told me how far, in terms of time.
Her. No; for I know not precisely myself. My guess is that it will not be more than twenty years; by that time I shall surely be on the summit.
Ly. Mercy upon us, you take long views!
Her. Ay; but, as the toil, so is the reward.
Ly. That may be; but about these twenty years — have you your master’s promise that you will live so long? is he prophet as well as philosopher? or is it a soothsayer or Chaldean expert that you trust? such things are known to them, I understand. You would never, of course, if there were any uncertainty of your life’s lasting to the Virtue-point, slave and toil night and day like this; why, just as you were close to the top, your fate might come upon you, lay hold of you by the heel, and lug you down with your hopes unfulfilled.
Delphi Complete Works of Lucian Page 96