Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  It need not be denied that there is in him a certain lack of feeling, not surprising in one of his analytic temper, but not agreeable either. He is a hard bright intelligence, with no bowels; he applies the knife without the least compunction — indeed with something of savage enjoyment. The veil is relentlessly torn from family affection in the Mourning. Solon in the Charon pursues his victory so far as to make us pity instead of scorning Croesus. Menippus and his kind, in the shades, do their lashing of dead horses with a disagreeable gusto, which tempts us to raise a society for the prevention of cruelty to the Damned. A voyage through Lucian in search of pathos will yield as little result as one in search of interest in nature. There is a touch of it here and there (which has probably evaporated in translation) in the Hermotimus, the Demonax, and the Demosthenes; but that is all. He was perhaps not unconscious of all this himself. ‘But what is your profession?’ asks Philosophy. ‘I profess hatred of imposture and pretension, lying and pride… However, I do not neglect the complementary branch, in which love takes the place of hate; it includes love of truth and beauty and simplicity, and all that is akin to love. But the subjects for this branch of the profession are sadly few.’

  Before going on to his purely literary qualities, we may collect here a few detached remarks affecting rather his character than his skill as an artist. And first of his relations to philosophy. The statements in the Menippus and the Icaromenippus, as well as in The Fisher and The double Indictment, have all the air of autobiography (especially as they are in the nature of digressions), and give us to understand that he had spent much time and energy on philosophic study. He claims Philosophy as his mistress in The Fisher, and in a case where he is in fact judge as well as party, has no difficulty in getting his claim established. He is for ever reminding us that he loves philosophy and only satirizes the degenerate philosophers of his day. But it will occur to us after reading him through that he has dissembled his love, then, very well. There is not a passage from beginning to end of his works that indicates any real comprehension of any philosophic system. The external characteristics of the philosophers, the absurd stories current about them, and the popular misrepresentations of their doctrines — it is in these that philosophy consists for him. That he had read some of them there is no doubt; but one has an uneasy suspicion that he read Plato because he liked his humour and his style, and did not trouble himself about anything further. Gibbon speaks of ‘the philosophic maze of the writings of Plato, of which the dramatic is perhaps more interesting than the argumentative part.’ That is quite a legitimate opinion, provided you do not undertake to judge philosophy in the light of it. The apparently serious rejection of geometrical truth in the Hermotimus may fairly suggest that Lucian was as unphilosophic as he was unmathematical. Twice, and perhaps twice only, does he express hearty admiration for a philosopher. Demonax is ‘the best of all philosophers’; but then he admired him just because he was so little of a philosopher and so much a man of ordinary common sense. And Epicurus is ‘the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and been in solitary possession of truth’; but then that is in the Alexander, and any stick was good enough to beat that dog with. The fact is, Lucian was much too well satisfied with his own judgement to think that he could possibly require guidance, and the commonplace test of results was enough to assure him that philosophy was worthless: ‘It is no use having all theory at your fingers’ ends, if you do not conform your conduct to the right.’ There is a description in the Pantomime that is perhaps truer than it is meant to pass for. ‘Lycinus’ is called ‘an educated man, and in some sort a student of philosophy.’

  If he is not a philosopher, he is very much a moralist; it is because philosophy deals partly with morals that he thinks he cares for it. But here too his conclusions are of a very commonsense order. The Stoic notion that ‘Virtue consists in being uncomfortable’ strikes him as merely absurd; no asceticism for him; on the other hand, no lavish extravagance and Persici apparatus; a dinner of herbs with the righteous — that is, the cultivated Athenian — , a neat repast of Attic taste, is honestly his idea of good living; it is probable that he really did sacrifice both money and fame to live in Athens rather than in Rome, according to his own ideal. That ideal is a very modest one; when Menippus took all the trouble to get down to Tiresias in Hades via Babylon, his reward was the information that ‘the life of the ordinary man is the best and the most prudent choice.’ So thought Lucian; and it is to be counted to him for righteousness that he decided to abandon ‘the odious practices that his profession imposes on the advocate — deceit, falsehood, bluster, clamour, pushing,’ for the quiet life of a literary man (especially as we should probably never have heard his name had he done otherwise). Not that the life was so quiet as it might have been. He could not keep his satire impersonal enough to avoid incurring enmities. He boasts in the Peregrine of the unfeeling way in which he commented on that enthusiast to his followers, and we may believe his assurance that his writings brought general dislike and danger upon him. His moralizing (of which we are happy to say there is a great deal) is based on Tiresias’s pronouncement. Moralizing has a bad name; but than good moralizing there is, when one has reached a certain age perhaps, no better reading. Some of us like it even in our novels, feel more at home with Fielding and Thackeray for it, and regretfully confess ourselves unequal to the artistic aloofness of a Flaubert. Well, Lucian’s moralizings are, for those who like such things, of the right quality; they are never dull, and the touch is extremely light. We may perhaps be pardoned for alluding to half a dozen conceptions that have a specially modern air about them. The use that Rome may serve as a school of resistance to temptation (Nigrinus, 19) recalls Milton’s ‘fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary.’ ‘Old age is wisdom’s youth, the day of her glorious flower’ (Heracles, 8) might have stood as a text for Browning’s Rabbi ben Ezra. The brands visible on the tyrant’s soul, and the refusal of Lethe as a sufficient punishment (Voyage to the lower World, 24 and 28), have their parallels in our new eschatology. The decision of Zeus that Heraclitus and Democritus are to be one lot that laughter and tears will go together (Sale of Creeds, l3) — accords with our views of the emotional temperament. Chiron is impressive on the vanity of fruition (Dialogues of the Dead, 26). And the figuring of Truth as ‘the shadowy creature with the indefinite complexion’ (The Fisher, 16) is only one example of Lucian’s felicity in allegory.

  Another weak point, for which many people will have no more inclination to condemn him than for his moralizing, is his absolute indifference to the beauties of nature. Having already given him credit for regarding nothing that is human as beyond his province, it is our duty to record the corresponding limitation; of everything that was not human he was simply unconscious; with him it was not so much that the proper as that the only study of mankind is man. The apparent exceptions are not real ones. If he is interested in the gods, it is as the creatures of human folly that he takes them to be. If he writes a toy essay with much parade of close observation on the fly, it is to show how amusing human ingenuity can be on an unlikely subject. But it is worth notice that ‘the first of the moderns,’ though he shows himself in many descriptions of pictures quite awake to the beauty manufactured by man, has in no way anticipated the modern discovery that nature is beautiful. To readers who have had enough of the pathetic fallacy, and of the second-rate novelist’s local colour, Lucian’s tacit assumption that there is nothing but man is refreshing. That he was a close enough observer of human nature, any one can satisfy himself by glancing at the Feast of Lapithae, the Dialogues of the Hetaerae, some of the Dialogues of the Gods, and perhaps best of all, The Liar.

  As it occurs to himself to repel the imputation of plagiarism in A literary Prometheus, the point must be briefly touched upon. There is no doubt that Homer preceded him in making the gods extremely, even comically, human, that Plato showed him an example of prose dialogue, that Aristophanes inspir
ed his constructive fancy, that Menippus provided him with some ideas, how far developed on the same lines we cannot now tell, that Menander’s comedies and Herodas’s mimes contributed to the absolute naturalness of his conversation. If any, or almost any, of these had never existed, Lucian would have been more or less different from what he is. His originality is not in the least affected by that; we may resolve him theoretically into his elements; but he too had the gift, that out of three sounds he framed, not a fourth sound, but a star. The question of his originality is no more important — indeed much less so — than that of Sterne’s.

  When we pass to purely literary matters, the first thing to be remarked upon is the linguistic miracle presented to us. It is useless to dwell upon it in detail, since this is an introduction not to Lucian, but to a translation of Lucian; it exists, none the less. A Syrian writes in Greek, and not in the Greek of his own time, but in that of five or six centuries before, and he does it, if not with absolute correctness, yet with the easy mastery that we expect only from one in a million of those who write in their mother tongue, and takes his place as an immortal classic. The miracle may be repeated; an English-educated Hindu may produce masterpieces of Elizabethan English that will rank him with Bacon and Ben Jonson; but it will surprise us, when it does happen. That Lucian was himself aware of the awful dangers besetting the writer who would revive an obsolete fashion of speech is shown in the Lexiphanes.

  Some faults of style he undoubtedly has, of which a word or two should perhaps be said. The first is the general taint of rhetoric, which is sometimes positively intolerable, and is liable to spoil enjoyment even of the best pieces occasionally. Were it not that ‘Rhetoric made a Greek of me,’ we should wish heartily that he had never been a rhetorician. It is the practice of talking on unreal cases, doubtless habitual with him up to forty, that must be responsible for the self- satisfied fluency, the too great length, and the perverse ingenuity, that sometimes excite our impatience. Naturally, it is in the pieces of inferior subject or design that this taint is most perceptible; and it must be forgiven in consideration of the fact that without the toilsome study of rhetoric he would not have been the master of Greek that he was.

  The second is perhaps only a special case of the first. Julius Pollux, a sophist whom Lucian is supposed to have attacked in The Rhetorician’s Vade mecum, is best known as author of an Onomasticon, or word-list, containing the most important words relating to certain subjects. One would be reluctant to believe that Lucian condescended to use his enemy’s manual; but it is hard to think that he had not one of his own, of which he made much too good use. The conviction is constantly forced on a translator that when Lucian has said a thing sufficiently once, he has looked at his Onomasticon, found that there are some words he has not yet got in, and forthwith said the thing again with some of them, and yet again with the rest.

  The third concerns his use of illustrative anecdotes, comparisons, and phrases. It is true that, if his pieces are taken each separately, he is most happy with all these (though it is hard to forgive Alexander’s bathe in the Cydnus with which The Hall opens); but when they are read continuously, the repeated appearances of the tragic actor disrobed, the dancing apes and their nuts, of Zeus’s golden cord, and of the ‘two octaves apart,’ produce an impression of poverty that makes us momentarily forget his real wealth.

  We have spoken of the annoying tendency to pleonasm in Lucian’s style, which must be laid at the door of rhetoric. On the other hand let it have part of the credit for a thing of vastly more importance, his choice of dialogue as a form when he took to letters. It is quite obvious that he was naturally a man of detached mind, with an inclination for looking at both sides of a question. This was no doubt strengthened by the common practice among professional rhetoricians of writing speeches on both sides of imaginary cases. The level-headedness produced by this combination of nature and training naturally led to the selection of dialogue. In one of the preliminary trials of The double Indictment, Drink, being one of the parties, and consciously incapable at the moment of doing herself justice, employs her opponent, The Academy, to plead for as well as against her. There are a good many pieces in which Lucian follows the same method. In The Hall the legal form is actually kept; in the Peregrine speeches are delivered by an admirer and a scorner of the hero; in The Rhetorician’s Vade mecum half the piece is an imaginary statement of the writer’s enemy; in the Apology for ‘The dependent Scholar’ there is a long imaginary objection set up to be afterwards disposed of; the Saturnalian Letters are the cases of rich and poor put from opposite sides. None of these are dialogues; but they are all less perfect devices to secure the same object, the putting of the two views that the man of detached mind recognizes on every question. Not that justice is always the object; these devices, and dialogue still more, offer the further advantage of economy; no ideas need be wasted, if the subject is treated from more than one aspect. The choice of dialogue may be accounted for thus; it is true that it would not have availed much if the chooser had not possessed the nimble wit and the endless power of varying the formula which is so astonishing in Lucian; but that it was a matter of importance is proved at once by comparing the Alexander with The Liar, or The dependent Scholar with the Feast of Lapithae. Lucian’s non-dialogue pieces (with the exception of The True History) might have been written by other people; the dialogues are all his own.

  About five-and-thirty of his pieces (or sets of pieces) are in dialogue, and perhaps the greatest proof of his artistic skill is that the form never palls; so great is the variety of treatment that no one of them is like another. The point may be worth dwelling on a little. The main differences between dialogues, apart from the particular writer’s characteristics, are these: the persons may be two only, or more; they may be well or ill-matched; the proportions and relations between conversation and narrative vary; and the objects in view are not always the same. It is natural for a writer to fall into a groove with some or all of these, and produce an effect of sameness. Lucian, on the contrary, so rings the changes by permutations and combinations of them that each dialogue is approached with a delightful uncertainty of what form it may take. As to number of persons, it is a long step from the Menippus to the crowded dramatis personae of The Fisher or the Zeus Tragoedus, in the latter of which there are two independent sets, one overhearing and commenting upon the other. It is not much less, though of another kind, from The Parasite, where the interlocutor is merely a man of straw, to the Hermotimus, where he has life enough to give us ever fresh hopes of a change in fortune, or to the Anacharsis, where we are not quite sure, even when all is over, which has had the best. Then if we consider conversation and narrative, there are all kinds. Nigrinus has narrative in a setting of dialogue, Demosthenes vice versa, The Liar reported dialogue inside dialogue; Icaromenippus is almost a narrative, while The Runaways is almost a play. Lastly, the form serves in the Toxaris as a vehicle for stories, in the Hermotimus for real discussion, in Menippus as relief for narrative, in the Portrait-study for description, in The Cock to convey moralizing, in The double Indictment autobiography, in the Lexiphanes satire, and in the short series it enshrines prose idylls.

  These are considerations of a mechanical order, perhaps; it may be admitted that technical skill of this sort is only valuable in giving a proper chance to more essential gifts; but when those exist, it is of the highest value. And Lucian’s versatility in technique is only a symbol of his versatile powers in general. He is equally at home in heaven and earth and hell, with philosophers and cobblers, telling a story, criticizing a book, describing a picture, elaborating an allegory, personifying an abstraction, parodying a poet or a historian, flattering an emperor’s mistress, putting an audience into good temper with him and itself, unveiling an imposture, destroying a religion or a reputation, drawing a character. The last is perhaps the most disputable of the catalogue. How many of his personages are realities to us when we have read, and not mere labels for certain modes of thought or conduct?
Well, characterization is not the first, but only the second thing with him; what is said matters rather more than who says it; he is more desirous that the argument should advance than that the person should reveal himself; nevertheless, nothing is ever said that is out of character; while nothing can be better of the kind than some of his professed personifications, his Plutus or his Philosophy, we do retain distinct impressions of at least an irresponsible Zeus and a decorously spiteful Hera, a well-meaning, incapable Helius, a bluff Posidon, a gallant Prometheus, a one- idea’d Charon; Timon is more than misanthropy, Eucrates than superstition, Anacharsis than intelligent curiosity, Micyllus than ignorant poverty, poor Hermotimus than blind faith, and Lucian than a scoffer.

  INTRODUCTION TO LUCIAN by A. M. Harmon

  LUCIAN was born at Samosata in Commagene and calls himself a Syrian; he may or may not have been of Semitic stock. The exact duration of his life is unknown, but it is probable that he was born not long before 125 A.D. and died not long after 180. Something of his life-history is given us in his own writings, notably in the Dream, the Doubly Indicted, the Fisher, and the Apology. If what he tells us in the Dream is to be taken seriously (and it is usually so taken), he began his career as apprentice to his uncle, a sculptor, but soon became disgusted with his prospects in that calling and gave it up for Rhetoric, the branch of the literary profession then most in favour. Theoretically the vocation of a rhetorician was to plead in court, to compose pleas for others and to teach the art of pleading; but in practice his vocation was far less important in his own eyes and those of the public than his avocation, which consisted in going about from place to place and often from country to country displaying his ability as a speaker before the educated classes. In this way Lucian travelled through Ionia and Greece, to Italy and even to Gaul, and won much wealth and fame. Samples of his repertory are still extant among his works — declamations like the Phalans, essays on abstract themes like Slander, descriptions, appreciations, and depreciations. But although a field like this afforded ample scope for the ordinary rhetorician, it could not display the full talent of a Lucian. His bent for satire, which crops out even in his writings of this period, had to find expression, and ultimately found it in the satiric dialogue. In a sense, then, what he says is true, that he abandoned Rhetoric: but only in a very limited sense. In reality he changed only his repertory, not his profession, for his productions continued to be presented in the same manner and for the same purpose as of old — from a lecture-platform to entertain an audience.