IX
Simylus. Polystratus
Si. So here you are at last, Polystratus; you must be something very like a centenarian.
Pol. Ninety-eight.
Si. And what sort of a life have you had of it, these thirty years? you were about seventy when I died.
Pol. Delightful, though you may find it hard to believe.
Si. It is surprising that you could have any joy of your life — old, weak, and childless, moreover.
Pol. In the first place, I could do just what I liked; there were still plenty of handsome boys and dainty women; perfumes were sweet, wine kept its bouquet, Sicilian feasts were nothing to mine.
Si. This is a change, to be sure; you were very economical in my day.
Pol. Ah, but, my simple friend, these good things were presents — came in streams. From dawn my doors were thronged with visitors, and in the day it was a procession of the fairest gifts of earth.
Si. Why, you must have seized the crown after my death.
Pol. Oh no, it was only that I inspired a number of tender passions.
Si. Tender passions, indeed! what, you, an old man with hardly a tooth left in your head!
Pol. Certainly; the first of our townsmen were in love with me. Such as you see me, old, bald, blear-eyed, rheumy, they delighted to do me honour; happy was the man on whom my glance rested a moment.
Si. Well, then, you had some adventure like Phaon’s, when he rowed Aphrodite across from Chios; your God granted your prayer and made you young and fair and lovely again.
Pol. No, no; I was as you see me, and I was the object of all desire.
Si. Oh, I give it up.
Pol. Why, I should have thought you knew the violent passion for old men who have plenty of money and no children.
Si. Ah, now I comprehend your beauty, old fellow; it was the Golden Aphrodite bestowed it.
Pol. I assure you, Simylus, I had a good deal of satisfaction out of my lovers; they idolized me, almost. Often I would be coy and shut some of them out. Such rivalries! such jealous emulations!
Si. And how did you dispose of your fortune in the end?
Pol. I gave each an express promise to make him my heir; he believed, and treated me to more attentions than ever; meanwhile I had another genuine will, which was the one I left, with a message to them all to go hang.
Si. Who was the heir by this one? one of your relations, I suppose.
Pol. Not likely; it was a handsome young Phrygian I had lately bought.
Si. Age?
Pol. About twenty.
Si. Ah, I can guess his office.
Pol. Well, you know, he deserved the inheritance much better than they did; he was a barbarian and a rascal; but by this time he has the best of society at his beck. So he inherited; and now he is one of the aristocracy; his smooth chin and his foreign accent are no bars to his being called nobler than Codrus, handsomer than Nireus, wiser than Odysseus.
Si. Well, I don’t mind; let him be Emperor of Greece, if he likes, so long as he keeps the property away from that other crew.
X
Charon. Hermes. Various Shades
Ch. I’ll tell you how things stand. Our craft, as you see, is small, and leaky, and three-parts rotten; a single lurch, and she will capsize without more ado. And here are all you passengers, each with his luggage. If you come on board like that, I am afraid you may have cause to repent it; especially those who have not learnt to swim.
Her. Then how are we to make a trip of it?
Ch. I’ll tell you. They must leave all this nonsense behind them on shore, and come aboard in their skins. As it is, there will be no room to spare. And in future, Hermes, mind you admit no one till he has cleared himself of encumbrances, as I say. Stand by the gangway, and keep an eye on them, and make them strip before you let them pass.
Her. Very good. Well, Number One, who are you?
Men. Menippus. Here are my wallet and staff; overboard with them. I had the sense not to bring my cloak.
Her. Pass on, Menippus; you’re a good fellow; you shall have the seat of honour, up by the pilot, where you can see every one. — Here is a handsome person; who is he?
Char. Charmoleos of Megara; the irresistible, whose kiss was worth a thousand pounds.
Her. That beauty must come off, — lips, kisses, and all; the flowing locks, the blushing cheeks, the skin entire. That’s right. Now we’re in better trim; — you may pass on. — And who is the stunning gentleman in the purple and the diadem?
Lam. I am Lampichus, tyrant of Gela.
Her. And what is all this splendour doing here, Lampichus?
Lam. How! would you have a tyrant come hither stripped?
Her. A tyrant! That would be too much to expect. But with a shade we must insist. Off with these things.
Lam. There, then: away goes my wealth.
Her. Pomp must go too, and pride; we shall be overfreighted else.
Lam. At least let me keep my diadem and robes.
Her. No, no; off they come!
Lam. Well? That is all, as you see for yourself.
Her. There is something more yet: cruelty, folly, insolence, hatred.
Lam. There then: I am bare.
Her. Pass on. — And who may you be, my bulky friend?
Dam. Damasias the athlete.
Her. To be sure; many is the time I have seen you in the gymnasium.
Dam. You have. Well, I have peeled; let me pass.
Her. Peeled! my dear sir, what, with all this fleshy encumbrance? Come, off with it; we should go to the bottom if you put one foot aboard. And those crowns, those victories, remove them.
Dam. There; no mistake about it this time; I am as light as any shade among them.
Her. That’s more the kind of thing. On with you. — Crato, you can take off that wealth and luxury and effeminacy; and we can’t have that funeral pomp here, nor those ancestral glories either; down with your rank and reputation, and any votes of thanks or inscriptions you have about you; and you need not tell us what size your tomb was; remarks of that kind come heavy.
Cra. Well, if I must, I must; there’s no help for it.
Her. Hullo! in full armour? What does this mean? and why this trophy?
A General. I am a great conqueror; a valiant warrior; my country’s pride.
Her. The trophy may stop behind; we are at peace; there is no demand for arms. — Whom have we here? whose is this knitted Drow, this flowing beard? ’Tis some reverend sage, if outside goes for anything; he mutters; he is wrapped in meditation.
Men. That’s a philosopher, Hermes; and an impudent quack not the bargain. Have him out of that cloak; you will find something to amuse you underneath it.
Her. Off with your clothes first; and then we will see to the rest. My goodness, what a bundle: quackery, ignorance, quarrelsomeness, vainglory; idle questionings, prickly arguments, intricate conceptions; humbug and gammon and wishy-washy hair-splittings without end; and hullo! why here’s avarice, and self-indulgence, and impudence! luxury, effeminacy and peevishness! — Yes, I see them all; you need not try to hide them. Away with falsehood and swagger and superciliousness; why, the three-decker is not built that would hold you with all this luggage.
A Philosopher. I resign them all, since such is your bidding.
Men. Have his beard off too, Hermes; only look what a ponderous bush of a thing! There’s a good five pounds’ weight there.
Her. Yes; the beard must go.
Phil. And who shall shave me?
Her. Menippus here shall take it off with the carpenter’s axe; the gangway will serve for a block.
Men. Oh, can’t I have a saw, Hermes? It would be much better fun.
Her. The axe must serve. — Shrewdly chopped! — Why, you look more like a man and less like a goat already.
Men. A little off the eyebrows?
Her. Why, certainly; he has trained them up all over his forehead, for reasons best known to himself. — Worm! what, snivelling? afraid of death? Oh, get on
board with you.
Men. He has still got the biggest thumper of all under his arm.
Her. What’s that?
Men. Flattery; many is the good turn that has done him.
Phil. Oh, all right, Menippus; suppose you leave your independence behind you, and your plain — speaking, and your indifference, and your high spirit, and your jests! — No one else here has a jest about him.
Her. Don’t you, Menippus! you stick to them; useful commodities, these, on shipboard; light and handy. — You rhetorician there, with your verbosities and your barbarisms, your antitheses and balances and periods, off with the whole pack of them.
Rhet. Away they go.
Her. All’s ready. Loose the cable, and pull in the gangway; haul up the anchor; spread all sail; and, pilot, look to your helm. Good luck to our voyage! — What are you all whining about, you fools? You philosopher, late of the beard, — you’re as bad as any of them.
Phil. Ah, Hermes: I had thought that the soul was immortal.
Men. He lies: that is not the cause of his distress.
Her. What is it, then?
Men. He knows that he will never have a good dinner again; never sneak about at night with his cloak over his head, going the round of the brothels; never spend his mornings in fooling boys out of their money, under the pretext of teaching them wisdom.
Phil. And pray are you content to be dead?
Men. It may be presumed so, as I sought death of my own accord. — By the way, I surely heard a noise, as if people were shouting on the earth?
Her. You did; and from more than one quarter. — There are people running in a body to the Town-hall, exulting over the death of Lampichus; the women have got hold of his wife; his infant children fare no better, — the boys are giving them handsome pelting. Then again you hear the applause that greets the orator Diophantus, as he pronounces the funeral oration of our friend Crato. Ah yes, and that’s Damasias’s mother, with her women, striking up a dirge. No one has tear for you, Menippus; your remains are left in peace. Privileged person!
Men. Wait a bit: before long you will hear the mournful howl of dogs, and the beating of crows’ wings, as they gather to perform my funeral rites.
Her. I like your spirit. — However, here we are in port. Away with you all to the judgement-seat; it is straight ahead. The ferryman and I must go back for a fresh load.
Men. Good voyage to you, Hermes. — Let us be getting on; what are you all waiting for? We have got to face the judge, sooner or later; and by all accounts his sentences are no joke; wheels, rocks, vultures are mentioned. Every detail of our lives will now come to light!
XI
Crates. Diogenes
Cra. Did you know Moerichus of Corinth, Diogenes? A shipowner, rolling in money, with a cousin called Aristeas, nearly as rich. He had a Homeric quotation: — Wilt thou heave me? shall I heave thee?
[Footnote: Homer, Il. xxiii. 724. When Ajax and Odysseus have wrestled for some time without either’s producing any impression, and the spectators are getting tired of it, the former proposes a change in tactics. “Let us hoist — try you with me or I with you.” The idea evidently is that each in turn is to offer only a passive resistance, and let his adversary try to fling him thus.’ Leaf.]
Diog. What was the point of it?
Cra. Why, the cousins were of equal age, expected to succeed to each other’s wealth, and behaved accordingly. They published their wills, each naming the other sole heir in case of his own prior decease. So it stood in black and white, and they vied with each other in showing that deference which the relation demands. All the prophets, astrologers, and Chaldean dream-interpreters alike, and Apollo himself for that matter, held different views at different times about the winner; the thousands seemed to incline now to Aristeas’s side, now to Moerichus’s.
Diog. And how did it end? I am quite curious.
Cra. They both died on the same day, and the properties passed to Eunomius and Thrasycles, two relations who had never had a presentiment of it. They had been crossing from Sicyon to Cirrha, when they were taken aback by a squall from the north-west, and capsized in mid-channel.
Diog. Cleverly done. Now, when we were alive, we never had such designs on one another. I never prayed for Antisthenes’s death, with a view to inheriting his staff — though it was an extremely serviceable one, which he had cut himself from a wild olive; and I do not credit you, Crates, with ever having had an eye to my succession; it included the tub, and a wallet with two pints of lupines in it.
Cra. Why, no; these things were superfluities to me — and to yourself, indeed. The real necessities you inherited from Antisthenes, and I from you; and in those necessities was more grandeur and majesty than in the Persian Empire.
Diog. You allude to —
Cra. Wisdom, independence, truth, frankness, freedom.
Diog. To be sure; now I think of it, I did inherit all this from Antisthenes, and left it to you with some addition.
Cra. Others, however, were not interested in such property; no one paid us the attentions of an expectant heir; they all lad their eyes on gold, instead.
Diog. Of course; they had no receptacle for such things as we could give; luxury had made them so leaky — as full of holes as a worn-out purse. Put wisdom, frankness, or truth into them, and it would have dropped out; the bottom of the bag would have let them through, like the perforated cask into which those poor Danaids are always pouring. Gold, on the other hand, they could grip with tooth or nail or somehow.
Cra. Result: our wealth will still be ours down here; while they will arrive with no more than one penny, and even that must be left with the ferryman.
XII
Alexander. Hannibal. Minos. Scipio
Alex. Libyan, I claim precedence of you. I am the better man.
Han. Pardon me.
Alex. Then let Minos decide.
Mi. Who are you both?
Alex. This is Hannibal, the Carthaginian: I am Alexander, the son of Philip.
Mi. Bless me, a distinguished pair! And what is the quarrel about?
Alex. It is a question of precedence. He says he is the better general: and I maintain that neither Hannibal nor (I might almost add) any of my predecessors was my equal in strategy; all the world knows that.
Mi. Well, you shall each have your say in turn: the Libyan first.
Han. Fortunately for me, Minos, I have mastered Greek since I have been here; so that my adversary will not have even that advantage of me. Now I hold that the highest praise is due to those who have won their way to greatness from obscurity; who have clothed themselves in power, and shown themselves fit for dominion. I myself entered Spain with a handful of men, took service under my brother, and was found worthy of the supreme command. I conquered the Celtiberians, subdued Western Gaul, crossed the Alps, overran the valley of the Po, sacked town after town, made myself master of the plains, approached the bulwarks of the capital, and in one day slew such a host, that their finger-rings were measured by bushels, and the rivers were bridged by their bodies. And this I did, though I had never been called a son of Ammon; I never pretended to be a god, never related visions of my mother; I made no secret of the fact that I was mere flesh and blood. My rivals were the ablest generals in the world, commanding the best soldiers in the world; I warred not with Medes or Assyrians, who fly before they are pursued, and yield the victory to him that dares take it.
Alexander, on the other hand, in increasing and extending as he did the dominion which he had inherited from his father, was but following the impetus given to him by Fortune. And this conqueror had no sooner crushed his puny adversary by the victories of Issus and Arbela, than he forsook the traditions of his country, and lived the life of a Persian; accepting the prostrations of his subjects, assassinating his friends at his own table, or handing them over to the executioner. I in my command respected the freedom of my country, delayed not to obey her summons, when the enemy with their huge armament invaded Libya, laid aside the privileg
es of my office, and submitted to my sentence without a murmur. Yet I was a barbarian all unskilled in Greek culture; I could not recite Homer, nor had I enjoyed the advantages of Aristotle’s instruction; I had to make a shift with such qualities as were mine by nature. — It is on these grounds that I claim the pre-eminence. My rival has indeed all the lustre that attaches to the wearing of a diadem, and — I know not — for Macedonians such things may have charms: but I cannot think that this circumstance constitutes a higher claim than the courage and genius of one who owed nothing to Fortune, and everything to his own resolution.
Delphi Complete Works of Lucian Page 107