Lucian (Collins)/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
LUCIAN AND THE PAGAN OLYMPUS.
The best known and the most popular of our author's multifarious writings are his "Dialogues," many of which would form admirable dramatic scenes, containing more of the spirit of comedy, as we moderns understand it, than either the broad burlesque of Aristophanes or the somewhat sententious and didactic tone of Terence. The "Dialogues of the Gods," in which the old mythological deities are introduced to us as it were in undress, discussing their family affairs and private quarrels in the most familiar style, were composed with a double purpose by their writer. He not only seized upon the absurd points in religious fable as presenting excellent material for burlesque, but he indulged at the same time in the most caustic form of satire upon the popular belief, against which, long before his day, the intellect of even the heathen world had revolted. It is possible that his apprenticeship, brief as it was, to the manufacture of stone Mercuries helped to make him an iconoclast. The man who assists in the chiselling out of a god must know more or less that he "has a lie in his right hand." The unhesitating faith in which (apparently) he accepts the truth of all the popular legends about Jupiter and his court, treating them in the most matter-of-fact and earnest way, and assuming their literal truth in every detail, makes the satire all the more pungent. To have sifted the heap of legends into false and true, or to have explained that this was only a poetical illustration, or that an allegorical form of truth, would not have damaged the popular creed half so much as this representation of the Olympian deities under all the personal and domestic circumstances which followed, as necessary corollaries, from their supposed relations to each other. We need not wonder that the charge of atheism was hurled against him by all the defenders, honest or dishonest, of the national worship. Many as had been the blows struck against it by satirists and philosophers, Lucian's was, if not the hardest, the most deadly of all.
The Dialogue called "Prometheus," though it stands alone, and is not classed among the "Dialogues of the Gods," is quite of the same character with these, and may be regarded as a kind of prologue to the series. As a punishment for the offence which he has given to Jupiter, Prometheus is being chained down upon Mount Caucasus, the idea of the scene being borrowed undoubtedly from the tragedy of Æschylus. The executioners of the punishment, however, in this case, are Vulcan and Mercury alone, without the aid of Strength and Force. The victim protests against the cruelty and injustice of his doom, and the mean and petty revenge taken by Jupiter (upon a deity of much older family than himself, too), just because he had been outwitted in the division of the sacrifice: for this he believes to have been the head and front of his offending.[1] What would be said of a mortal who should crucify his cook for tasting the soup, or cutting a bit off the roast? As for his creation of men,—the gods ought to be very much obliged to him: for where would be their temples, their honours and their sacrifices, if the earth had remained untenanted? Even the beauty of the universe would have had no admirers.[2] If it be said that these same mortals are wicked,—murderers, adulterers, and so forth,—the gods had better hold their tongues on that point, considering the examples set by themselves. Then, as to his gift of fire to men—it is mere envy in Jupiter to grudge it them; and gods ought surely to be widely beneficent, not envious and selfish. And, if the gods do not like to see fire used upon earth, at least they seem very much delighted with the smoke, when it comes up to them in the shape of incense. Mercury admits that his defence is, to say the least, very clever; but, he remarks, "you may think yourself very fortunate that Jupiter does not hear what you say, for he would surely send down a hundred vultures upon you instead of one."
The change of dynasty in heaven presents of course a salient point, here and elsewhere, to the satirist. He makes Prometheus in his agony appeal to the ancient deities,—Saturn, Jupiter, and Earth,—not recognising any of the new introductions. In this, too, he has followed Æschylus, who makes the great Titan call upon Earth and Sea and Air, to witness his treatment at the hands of a usurper.
Some of the shorter and more amusing of these "Dialogues of the Gods" are here given entire, and are a fair specimen of the humour of the rest.
JUPITER AND CUPID.
Cupid. Well, even if I have done wrong, pray forgive me, Jupiter; I am only a child, you see, and don't know any better.
Jupiter. Child, indeed, Master Cupid! you who are older than Iapetus! Because you don't happen to have grown a beard yet, and because your hair isn't grey, you are to be considered a child, I suppose—old and crafty as you are.
Cup. Why, what great harm have I done you—old as you say I am—that you should think of putting me in the stocks?
Jup. Look here, then, you mischievous imp! is this a trifle—the way in which you have disgraced me? There is nothing you have not turned me into—satyr, bull, gold pieces, swan, eagle; but you never yet have made a single woman fall in love with me for myself, nor have I ever been able to make myself agreeable in any quarter in my own person, but I have to use magic in all such affairs, and disguise myself. And after all, it's the bull or the swan they fall in love with; if they see me, they die of terror.
Cup. Yes, no wonder; they are but mortal, you know, Jupiter, and can't endure your awful person.
Jup. How is it, then, that Apollo gets them to fall in love with him?
Cup. Well—Daphne, you know, ran away from him, for all his flowing locks and smooth face. But if you want to make yourself attractive, you mustn't shake your ægis, and carry your thunderbolt about with you, but make yourself look as pleasant as you can,—let your hair hang down on both sides of your face in curls,—put a fillet round it,—get a purple dress,—put on gilded sandals,—walk with the fashionable step, with a pipe and timbrel before you: you'll see, the women will run after you then, faster than the Mœnads do after Bacchus.
Jup. Away with you—I couldn't condescend to be attractive by making myself such a fool as that.
Cup. Very well, Jupiter, then give up love-making altogether; (looking slyly at him)—that's easy enough, you know.
Jup. Nay, I must go on with my courting, but you must find me some less troublesome fashion than that. And upon this sole condition, I let you off once more.
VULCAN AND APOLLO.
Vulcan. I say, Apollo—have you seen this young bantling that Maia has just produced? What a fine child it is!—smiles at everybody, and gives plain token already that it will turn out something wonderful—quite a blessing to us all.
Apollo. A blessing, you think, eh, Vulcan? that child—who is older, in point of wickedness, than old father Iapetus himself!
Vul. Why, what harm can a baby like that do to anybody?
Ap. Just ask Neptune,—he stole his trident. Or ask Mars,—the brat slipped his sword out of its sheath as quickly as you please; to say nothing of myself, and he has gone off with my bow and arrows.
Vul. What! that infant? who can hardly stand? the one in the cradle there?
Ap. You'll soon find out for yourself, Vulcan, if he pays you a visit.
Vul. Why, he has paid me a visit, just now.
Ap. Well, have you got all your tools safe? none of them missing, is there?
Vul. (looking round). No—they are all right, Apollo.
Ap. Nay, look carefully.
Vul. By Jove! I can't see my anvil!
Ap. You'll find it somewhere in his cradle, I'll be bound.
Vul. Why, he's as handy with his fingers as if he had studied thieving before he was born!
Ap. Ah! you haven't heard him yet talking, as pert and as glib as may be. Why, he wants to run errands for us all! Yesterday, he challenged Cupid to wrestle with him, and tripped up both his legs in some way, and threw him in a second. Then, when we were all applauding him, and Venus was hugging him after his victory, he stole her cestus; and while Jupiter was laughing at that, he was off with his majesty's sceptre. Ay, and if the thunderbolt did not happen to be heavy, and considerably hot withal, he would have stolen that too.
Vul. You make the child out to be a prodigy.
Ap. Not only that—he knows music already.
Vul. How did he find that out?
Ap. He got hold of a dead tortoise somewhere, and made its shell into an instrument: fitted it with pins, and put a bridge to it, and stretched seven strings across it. Then he sang to it,—something really quite pretty, Vulcan, and in good tune: I was absolutely jealous of him, though, as you know, I have practised the lyre some time. Maia declares, too, that he never stays in heaven at night, but goes down into the Shades, out of curiosity—or to steal something there, most likely. He has got wings, too, and has made himself a rod of some miraculous power, by which he guides and conducts the dead below.
Vul. Oh, I gave him that, myself, for a toy.
Ap. So, in return, to show his gratitude, your anvil———
Vul. By the by, you remind me. I must go and look if I can find it, as you say, anywhere in his cradle.
JUPITER, ÆSCULAPIUS, AND HERCULES.
Jupiter. Be quiet, do, both of you—Hercules and Æsculapius—quarrelling with one another, just like mortals. It's really quite unseemly, this kind of conduct; not at all the thing in Olympian society.
Hercules. But do you mean to say, Jupiter, this apothecary fellow is to sit above me?
Æsculapius. Quite fair I should; I'm the better deity.
Herc. In what way, you staring ass? Because Jupiter struck you with his lightning for doing what you had no right to do, and now out of sheer pity has made you into an immortal?
Æsc. Have you forgot, Hercules, the bonfire that you made of yourself upon Mount Œta, that you taunt me with having been burnt?
Herc. Our lives were considerably different. I, the son of Jove, who undertook all those labours to benefit my generation, conquering monsters and punishing tyrants: while you went about like a vagabond, collecting roots, of some little use perhaps to dose a few sick folk, but never having done a single deed of valour.
Æsc. All very fine; when I healed your sores, sir, when you came up here the other day half roasted between the effects of the tunic and the fire together. Well, if I haven't done much, at least I was never a slave, as you were—never carded wool in Lydia in a woman's dress—never had my face slapped by Omphale with her gilt slipper: and never went mad and killed my wife and children.
Herc. If you don't stop that abuse, sir, you'll pretty soon find out that your immortality is not of much use to you. I'll take and pitch you head-first out of heaven; and it will be more than Pæan himself can do to mend you when your skull's broken.
Jup. Stop! I tell you both again, and don't annoy the company, or I'll turn you both out of the hall. But it's quite fair, Hercules, that Æsculapius should sit above you—because he died first.
JUNO AND LATONA.
Juno (meeting her rival with a disdainful half-bow). A lovely pair of brats indeed, Latona, you have presented Jupiter with!
Latona (with a sweeping curtsey). Oh, we cannot all of us be expected, your majesty, to produce such a beauty as Vulcan!
Ju. (rather disconcerted). Well, lame as he is, he is very useful. He's a charming artist, and has decorated heaven for us with excellent taste. Then he has married Venus, and she is wonderfully fond of him too. But those children of yours—why, that girl's quite a masculine creature, only fit for the country. And now this lust expedition of hers into Scythia—everybody knows her horrible way of living there—killing her visitors and eating them—as bad as those cannibals, the Scythians themselves. Then Apollo,—he pretends, I'm told, to know everything—archery, and music, and medicine, and magic to boot; and has set up his prophecy-shops, one at Delphi, and one in Claros, and one at Didymœ; and cheats the people who come to consult him, with his enigmas and double-entendres, which can be turned into answers to the question both ways, so that he can never be proved wrong. He makes it pay, no doubt; there are always fools enough in the world ready to be cheated by a fortune-toller. But wiser persons see through him well enough, for all his humbugging prodigies. Prophet as he is, he could not divine that he was to kill his favourite with a quoit; or foresee that Daphne would run away from him, in spite of his pretty face and his curls. I don't see, for my own part, how you could have been considered more fortunate in your children than poor Niobe.
La. Oh yes; I know how you hate to see my two darlings—the cannibal and the charlatan, as you are pleased to call them—in the company of the gods: especially when her beauty is the subject of remark, or when he plays after dinner, to the admiration of everybody.
Ju. Really, Latona, you make me laugh. Admire his playing indeed! Why, if the Muses had only thought proper to decide fairly, Marsyas ought to have skinned him, for he was unquestionably the better musician of the two. As it was, poor fellow, he was cheated, and lost his life by their unjust verdict. And as for your beautiful daughter,—yes, she was so beautiful, that when she knew she had been spied by Actæon, for fear that the young man should publish her ugliness, she set the dogs at him. And I might add that her occupation as a midwife is not over-maidenly.
La. You are mighty proud, Juno, because you are the consort of Jove, and so think you can insult us all as much as you please. But it will not be very long before I shall see you in your usual hysterics, when his majesty goes down to earth in disguise upon one of his intriguing rambles.
VENUS AND CUPID.
Venus. How in the world is it, Cupid, that you, who have mastered all the other gods, Jupiter and Neptune and Apollo and Rhea—and even me, your mother—yet you never try your hand upon Minerva? In her ease, your torch seems to lose its fire, your quiver has no arrows, and your skill and cunning is all at fault.
Cupid. I am afraid of her, mother; she has such a terrible look, and such stern eyes, and is so horribly man-like. Whenever I bend my bow and take aim at her, she shakes her crest at me and frightens me so that I absolutely shake, and the arrow drops out of my hands.
Ven. But was not Mars even more terrible? Yet you disarmed and conquered him.
Cup. Oh, he gives in to me of his own accord, and invites me to attack him. But Minerva always eyes me suspiciously, and whenever I fly near her with my torch, "If you dare to touch me," she says, "I swear by my father, I'll run my spear through you, or take you by the leg and pitch you into Tartarus, or tear you limb from limb." She has often threatened me so; and then she looks so savage, and has got a horrible head of some kind fixed upon her breast, with snakes for hair, which I am dreadfully afraid of. It terrifies me, and I run away whenever I see it.
Ven. You are afraid of Minerva and her Gorgon, you say—you, who are not afraid of Jupiter's thunderbolt! And pray, why are the Muses still untouched, as if they were out of the reach of your arrows? Do they shake their crests too, or do they display any Gorgon's heads?
Cup. Oh, mother! I should be ashamed to meddle with them—they are such respectable and dignified young ladies, always deep in their studies, or busy with their music; I often stand listening to them till I quite forget myself.
Ven. Well, let them alone; they are very respectable. But Diana, now—why do you never aim a shaft at her?
Cup. The fact is, I can't catch her; she is always flying over the mountains; besides, she has a little private love-affair of her own already.
Ven. With whom, child?
Cup. With the game—stags and fauns—that she hunts and brings down with her arrows; she cares for nothing else, that I know of. But as for that brother of hers, great archer as he is, and far as he is said to shoot———
Ven. (laughing). Yes, yes, I know, child—you've hit him often enough.
As a pendant to these "Dialogues of the Gods," though it is not one of the pieces which bear that name, we have an amusing satire, conceived in the same daring spirit of iconoclasm, called
JUPITER IN HEROICS.
The speculations of the rationalists of the day as to the existence or non-existence of the Olympian deities have reached the ears of Jupiter himself, and he enters upon the scene in a state of considerable excitement and indignation, marching up and down, and muttering, with a pallid face, and his skin the colour of a philosopher, to the great bewilderment of his family. He finds it impossible to give expression to his feelings in sober prose, but addresses Minerva in tragic verse, compounded from his recollections of Euripides. "Good heavens," says his goddess-daughter to herself, "what an awful prologue!" Not to show herself wanting in poetical taste, however, as indeed was due to her own reputation, she answers him in his own vein, in a cento from Homer. But, as the king of the gods is proceeding in the same strain, Juno comes upon the scene, and, like some mortal wives, has little sympathy with her husband's poetical vein. She begs him, for the sake of ordinary comprehensions, to confine himself to prose. "Remember, Jupiter," says she, "that all of us have not devoured Euripides bodily, as you have, and do not be angry if wo are unable to keep up with you in this extempore tragedy." She draws her own conclusion at once as to the cause of this excitement. Plainly it is nothing more or less than a new love-affair. Jupiter scornfully assures her that this is quite a different matter. It is a question which concerns the honour and status of all the court of Olympus; men are actually discussing among themselves upon earth whether they shall hereafter do worship and sacrifice to the gods at all. A council of the immortals must be held at once on urgent affairs; although Minerva, with a cautious prudence which will always find imitators, suggests that it would be better to leave such questions to settle themselves, and that the safest way to treat scepticism is to ignore it. But her counsel is overruled, and Mercury has orders to summon a general assembly of the gods forthwith.
Mercury. O yes, O yes! the gods are to come to council immediately! No delay—all to be present—come, come! upon urgent affairs of state.
Jupiter. What! do you summon them in that bald, inartificial, prosaic fashion, Mercury—and on a business of such high importance?
Merc. Why, how would you have it done, then?
Jup. How would I have it done? I say, proclamation should be made in dignified style—in verse of some kind, and with a sort of poetical grandeur. They would be more likely to come.
Merc. Possibly. But that's the business of your epic poets and rhapsodists—I'm not at all poetical myself. I should infallibly spoil the job, by putting in a foot too much or a foot too little, and only get myself laughed at for my bungling poetry. I hear even Apollo himself ridiculed for some of his poetical oracles—though in his case obscurity covers a multitude of sins. Those who consult him have so much to do to make out his meaning that they haven't much leisure to criticise his verse.
Jup. Well, but, Mercury, mix up a little Homer in your summons—the form, you know, in which he used to call us together; you surely remember it.
Merc. Not very readily or clearly. However, I'll try:—
And all ye streams within old Ocean's pale,
And all ye nymphs, at Jove's high summons, come,
All ye who eat the sacred hecatomb!
Who sit and sniff the holy steam, come all,
Great names, and small names, and no names at all."[3]
Jup. Well done, Mercury! a most admirable proclamation. Here they are all coming already. Now take and seat them, each in the order of their dignity—according to their material or their workmanship; the golden ones in the first seats, the silver next to them; then in succession those of ivory, brass, and stone,—and of these, let the works of Phidias, and Alcamenes, and Myron, and Euphranor, and suchlike artists, take precedence; but let the rude and inartistic figures be pushed into some corner or other, just to fill up the meeting—and let them hold their tongues.
Merc. So be it; they shall be seated according to their degree. But it may be as well for me to understand,—supposing one be of gold, weighing ever so many talents, but not well executed, and altogether common and badly finished, is he to sit above the brazen statues of Myron and Polycleitus, or the marble of Phidias and Alcamenes? Or must I count the art as more worthy than the material?
Jup. It ought to be so, certainly; but we must give the gold the preference, all the same.
Merc. I understand. You would have me class them according to wealth, not according to merit or excellence. Now, then, you that are made of gold, here—in the first seats. (Turning to Jupiter.) It seems to me, your majesty, that the first places will be filled up entirely with barbarians. You see what the Greeks are—very graceful and beautiful, and of admirable workmanship, but of marble or brass, all of them, or even the most valuable, of ivory, with just a little gold to give them colour and brightness; while their interior is of wood, with probably a whole commonwealth of mice established inside them. Whereas that Bendis, and Anubis, and Atthis there, and Mēn, are of solid gold, and really of enormous value.[4]
Neptune (coming forward). And is this fair, Mercury, that this dog-faced monster from Egypt should sit above me—me—Neptune?
Merc. That's the rule. Because, my friend Earthshaker, Lysippus made you of brass, and consequently poor—the Corinthians haying no gold at that time; whereas that is the most valuable of all metals. You must make up your mind, therefore, to make room for him, and not be vexed about it; a god with a great gold nose like that must needs take precedence.
(Enter Venus.)—Ven. (coaxingly to Mercury). Now then, Mercury dear, take and put me in a good place, please; I'm golden, you know.
Merc. Not at all, so far as I can see. Unless I'm very blind, you're cut out of white marble—from Pentelicus, I think—and it pleased Praxiteles to make a Venus of you, and hand you over to the people of Cnidus.
Ven. But I can produce a most unimpeachable witness—Homer himself. He continually calls me "golden Venus" all through his poems.
Merc. Yes; and the same authority calls Apollo "rich in gold" and "wealthy;" but you can see him sitting down there among the ordinary gods. He was stripped of his golden crown, you see, by the thieves, and they even stole the strings of his lyre. So you may think yourself well off that I don't put you down quite amongst the crowd.
(Enter the Colossus of Rhodes.)—Col. Now, who will venture to dispute precedence with me—me, who am the Sun, and of such a size to boot? If it had not been that the good people of Rhodes determined to construct me of extraordinary dimensions, they could have made sixteen golden gods for the same price.[5] Therefore I must be ranked higher, by the rule of proportion. Besides, look at the art and the workmanship,—so correct, though on such an immense scale.
Merc. What's to be done, Jupiter? It's a very hard question for me to decide. If I look at his material, he's only brass; but if I calculate how many talents' weight of brass he has in him, he's worth the most money of them all.
Jup. (testily). What the deuce does he want here at all—dwarfing all the rest of us into insignificance, as he does, and blocking up the meeting besides? (Aloud to Colossus.) Hark ye, good cousin of Rhodes, though you may be worth more than all these golden gods, how can you possibly take the highest seat, unless they all get up and you sit down by yourself? Why, one of your thighs would take up all the seats in the Pnyx! You'd better stand up, if you please,—and you can stoop your head a little towards the company.
Merc. Here's another difficulty, again. Here are two, both of brass, and of the same workmanship, both from the hands of Lysippus, and, more than all, equal in point of birth, both being sons of Jupiter—Bacchus, here, and Hercules. Which of them is to sit first? They're quarrelling over it, as you see.
Jup. We're wasting time, Mercury, when we ought to have begun business long ago. So let them sit down anyhow now, as they please. We will have another meeting hereafter about this question, and then I shall know better what regulations to make about precedence.
Merc. But, good heavens! what a row they all make, shouting that perpetual cry, as they do,—"Divide, 'vide, 'vide the victims!" "Where's the nectar? where's the nectar?" "The ambrosia's all out! the ambrosia's all out!" "Where are the hecatombs? where are the hecatombs?" "Give us our share!"
Jup. Bid them hold their tongues, do, Mercury, that they may hear the object of the meeting, and let such nonsense alone.
Merc. But they don't all understand Greek, and I am no such universal linguist as to make proclamation in Scythian, and Persian, and Thracian, and Celtic. It will be best, I suppose, to make a motion with my hand for them to be silent.
Jup. Very well—do.
Merc. See, they're all as dumb as philosophers. Now's your time to speak. Do you see? they're all looking at you, waiting to hear what you're going to say.
Jup. (clearing his treat). Well, as you're my own son, Mercury, I don't mind telling you how I feel. You know how self-possessed and how eloquent I always am at public meetings?
Merc. I know I trembled whenever I heard you speak, especially when you used to threaten all that about wrenching up earth and sea from their foundations, you know, gods and all, and dangling that golden chain[6]———
Jup. (interrupting him). But now, my son,—I can't tell whether it's the importance of the subject, or the vastness of the assembly (there are a tremendous lot of gods here, you see)—my ideas seem all in a whirl, and a sort of trembling has come over me, and my tongue seems as though it were tied. And the most unlucky thing of all is, I've forgotten the opening paragraph of my speech, which I had all ready prepared beforehand, that my exordium might be as attractive as possible.
Merc. Well, my good sir, you are in a bad way. They all mistrust your silence, and fancy they are to hear something very terrible, and that this is what makes you hesitate.
Jup. Suppose, Mercury, I were to rhapsodise a little,—that introduction, you know, out of Homer?
Merc. Which?
Jup. (declaiming)—
"Now, hear my words, ye gods and she-gods all———"
Merc. No—heaven forbid! you've given us enough of that stuff already. No—pray let that hackneyed style alone. Rather give them a bit out of one of the Philippics of Demosthenes—any one you please; you can alter and adapt it a little. That's the plan most of our modern orators adopt.
His Olympian majesty begins his oration, accordingly, with an adaptation of the opening of the First Philippic. But he presently descends to his own matter-of-fact style ("here," he says, "my Demosthenes fails me"), and relates how he had been present the day before, with some other gods, at a sacrifice of thanksgiving offered by a merchant-captain for his preservation from shipwreck—a very shabby affair, he complains it was, a single tough old cock for supper among sixteen gods. On his way home, he had heard two philosophers disputing, and, wishing to listen to their arguments, assumed a cloak and a long beard, and might, he declares, have very easily, for the nonce, passed for a philosopher himself. It was that rascal Damis the Epicurean, disputing with Timocles the Stoic, asserting that the gods took no heed to mortals or their affairs—in fact, practically denying their existence. Poor Timocles had been making a stout fight of it on the other side, but was so hard pressed by his opponent that Jupiter found him all in a perspiration and almost exhausted; he had therefore thrown the shadows of night round the disputants at once, and so put an end to the discussion. Following the crowd on their way home, he had been shocked to find that the majority were on the side of the atheistical Damis; and he had now summoned this assembly to take into their serious consideration the terrible results that would ensue if this opinion became the popular one. No more victims, and gifts, and incense-offering,—"the gods may sit in heaven and starve." Damis and Timocles are to meet again, he understands, for public discussion, and Jupiter verily fears that unless the gods give some help to their own champion, the other will get the best of it. He begs that some one of the assembly will get up in his place and offer some advice. Mercury invites any "who are of the legal standing in point of age" (we are to understand there are a great many newly-introduced deities in the council) to rise and deliver his opinion.
To make the burlesque more complete, it is Momus, the jester of the Olympian conclave, who first rises in reply to Jupiter's invitation.[7] He has long expected this, and is not surprised at it. The gods have brought it upon themselves, by neglecting their duties notoriously. Here, among friends and gods, with no mortal to hear, he may venture to speak openly. Has Jupiter himself been careful to make distinction between the good and the evil upon earth? Has virtue found any reward, or vice any punishment? What have any of them been caring for but their victims and their dues? What shameful stories they have allowed the poets to tell of their private life!—stories which, he admits, may possibly be true enough, yet not meet to be told to mortal hearers. And then the oracles, worse than vague, positively deceptive—witness those notorious productions of Apollo's about the empire which Crœsus was to destroy by crossing the Halys, and the sons of women who were to meet their fate at Salamis. No marvel if, when the gods are so remiss in their duties, men begin to grow tired of worshipping them.
Jupiter protests against such ribald language. He quotes his Demosthenes to the effect that it is much more easy to abuse and to find fault than to offer suggestions under difficulties.
Then Neptune asks leave to say a few words. He lives, indeed, at the bottom of the sea, and is not in the habit of interfering much in affairs on land, but he strongly advises that this Damis shall be silenced at once—by lightning, or some such irresistible argument. But Jupiter replies, very fairly, that this would only be a tacit admission on the part of the gods that they had no other kind of argument to offer. Apollo gives it as his opinion that the fault lies in Timocles himself, who, though a very sensible man, has not the knack of putting an argument clearly. Upon which Momus remarks that the recommendation of clearness and perspicuity certainly comes with a curious kind of propriety from Apollo, considering the style of his own oracular utterances. He invites him to give them an oracle now,—which of the two disputants will get the better in this contest? Apollo tries to excuse himself, on the ground that he has no tripod or incense, or other appliances at hand, and that he can do this kind of thing in much better style at Colophon or at Delphi. At last, urged by Jupiter to prove his art, and so put a stop to the jeers of Momus, he proceeds, with same apology for extempore versifying, to deliver an utterly incomprehensible oracle, which fully justifies the criticisms of his brother deity. Hercules offers to pull down the whole portico on the head of Damis, if the controversy should seem to be taking a turn unfavourable to the Olympian interests.
But now a messenger arrives from earth, no other than the brazen statue of Hermagoras—Mercury of the Forum—who stands in front of the Pœcile at Athens. He comes to announce—adopting the new fashion of heroics set by Jupiter—that the duel of the philosophers has been renewed. The gods agree to go down to see the battle, and the scene of the dialogue is supposed to change at once to Athens. There Timocles is trying to argue with his infidel opponent. He wonders, he says, that men do not stone him for his impious assertions. Damis does not see why men should take that trouble: the gods, if gods they be, can surely take their own part; they hear him, and yet they do not strike. But they will, replies Timocles; their vengeance is sure though slow. They are otherwise occupied, retorts the sceptic—gone out to dinner, perhaps, with those "blameless Ethiopians"—they often do, according to Homer; possibly, sometimes, even without waiting for an invitation. In vain does his opponent argue from the harmony and order of creation, and from the general consent of mankind: the very diversities of national worship, the many absurd forms of superstition, are claimed by his opponent as arguments on the other side. Timocles compares the world to a ship, which could not keep its course without a steersman. Damis replies that if there were, indeed, a divinity at the helm of this world's affairs, he would surely parcel out the duties of his crew better than he appears to do—putting the rascals and lubbers in command, and letting the best men be stowed away in holes and corners, and kept on short rations besides. Timocles, as a last resource, threatens to break the head of his opponent, who runs away laughing. Jupiter is in doubt, however, on which side the real victory lies. Mercury consoles him that the gods have still the majority on their side—three-fourths of the Greeks, all the rabble, and all the barbarians. "Nay, my son," replies Jupiter, "but that saying of Darius had much truth, which he uttered of his faithful general Zopyrus: I, too, had rather have one man like Damis on my side than ten thousand Babylonians."[8]
The satire, in its bold scepticism, seems to go much beyond the "Dialogues of the Gods." In those, it is but the absurdities of the popular mythology—always incredible, one cannot but think, to the educated intelligence—which he ridicules and exposes; a creed which, if it could be supposed to have any influence upon the moral conduct of men, could only have had an influence for evil. But in that which has now been sketched, he attacks the belief in a divine providence altogether: and though most of the arguments against such government of the world are chiefly taken from the manifest falsehood of certain items of the Greek popular creed, still the tone is too much that of pure materialism.
THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS.
In this amusing scene the absurdities of polytheism are put in the broadest light, and treated with the most admirable humour. The object of the Council, which is summoned by Jupiter's orders, is to institute a strict scrutiny into the right and title of the new gods—aliens and foreigners of all kinds and shapes—to a seat in the house of Olympus. They have lately found their way into heaven in such numbers that they are becoming quite a nuisance, as we have seen in the complaint made both by Neptune and Mercury in the dialogue just preceding.
Momus is again the chief spokesman; freedom of speech is, as he says, one of his main characteristics, and he is in the habit of giving his opinion without fear or favour. So, with Jupiter's permission, he will name some of what he considers the most gross cases of intrusion.
Momus. First, there is Bacchus; a grand pedigree his is!—half a mortal, not even a Greek by his mother's side, but the grandson of some Syro-Phœnician merchant-captain, Cadmus. Since he has been dignified with immortality, I shall say nothing about himself,—his style of head-dress, his drinking, or his unsteady gait. You can all see what he is, I suppose—more like a woman than a man, half crazy, and stinking of wine even before breakfast. But he has brought in his whole tribe to swell our company, and here he is with all his rout, whom he passes off as gods—Pan, and Silenus, and the Satyrs, a lot of rough country louts, goat-herds most of them, dancing-fellows, of all manner of strange shapes; one of them has horns, and is like a goat ail below his waist, with a long beard—you hardly can tell him from a goat; another is a bald fellow with a flat nose, generally mounted on an ass—a Lydian, he is. Then there are the Satyrs with their little prick ears, bald too, they are, and with little budding horns like kids—Phrygians, I believe; and they've all got tails besides. You see the sort of gods my noble friend provides us with. And then we are surprised that men hold us in contempt, when they see such ridiculous and monstrous gods as these! I say nothing of his introducing two women here—one his mistress Ariadne (whose crown, too, he has put among the stars, forsooth!), and the other a farmer's daughter, Erigone. And what is more absurd than all, brother deities, he has brought her dog in too: for fear, I suppose, that the girl should cry if she hadn't her darling pet to keep her company in heaven. Now, don't you consider all this an insult,—mere drunken madness and absurdity? And now I'll tell you about one or two more.
Jupiter (interrupting him). Don't say a word, if you please, Momus, either about Hercules or Æsculapius—I see what you're driving at. As to those two, one is a physician, and cures diseases, and, as old Homer says, you know—"is worth a host of men;" and as to Hercules,—why, he's my son, and earned his immortality by very hard work; so say no word against him.
Mom. Well, I'll hold my tongue, Jupiter, though I could say a good deal. They're both as black as cinders still, from the fire. If you would only give me leave to speak my mind freely, I've a good deal to say about you.
Jup. Oh, pray speak out, as far as I am concerned! Perhaps you charge me with being a foreigner too?
Mom. Well, in Crete they do say that, you know; and more than that, they show the place where you were buried. I don't believe them myself—any more than I do what the people of Ægium say,—that you are a changeling. But I do say this, that you've brought in too many of your illegitimate children here.
Momus goes on to tell the royal chairman some home truths, which Jupiter hears with great equanimity. Then he inveighs against the monstrous forms introduced from Eastern mythology; Phrygians and Medes like Atthis and Mithras, who cannot even talk Greek; the dog-faced Anubis, and the spotted bull from Memphis, apes and ibises from Egypt. And how can Jupiter himself have allowed them to put ram's horns on his head at Ammon? No wonder that mortals learn to despise him.
A solemn decree is drawn up by Momus, in strict legal form, beginning ag follows: "Whereas divers aliens, not only Greeks but Barbarians, who are in no wise entitled to the freedom of our community, have got themselves enrolled as gods, and so crowded heaven that it has become a mere disorderly mob of all nations and languages: and whereas thereby the ambrosia and the nectar runs short, so that the latter is now four guineas a pint, because there are so many to drink it; and whereas these new-comers, in their impudence, push the old and real gods out of their places, and claim precedence for themselves, against all our ancient rights, and demand also priority of worship on earth; it seemed good, therefore, to the Senate and Commons of Olympus, to hold a High Court at the winter equinox, and to elect as Commissioners of Privileges seven of the greater gods,—three from the ancient council of the reign of Saturn, and four from the twelve gods, of whom Jupiter to be one."
The business of the Commission is to be the examination of all claims to a seat in Olympus. Claimants are to bring their witnesses, and prove their pure descent; and they who cannot make good their claims are to be sent back to the tombs of their fathers. Moreover, from this time forth every deity is to mind his or her proper business, and none to pursue more than one art or science; Minerva is not to practise physic, nor Æsculapius divination; and Apollo is to make his election, and either be a seer, or a musician, or a doctor—but not all three.
Jupiter had intended to put this decree to the vote; but, foreseeing that a great many who were there present would probably vote against it, he took the easier course of issuing it on his own royal authority.
The dramatic sketch entitled "Timon" handles the Olympian Jupiter in the same free spirit as the preceding Dialogues, and is by some considered as the author's masterpiece. The character of Plutus, the god of Riches, introduced into the piece, is obviously borrowed from Aristophanes's comedy of that name. Timon is introduced after he has forsaken society, and is digging for his livelihood.
TIMON.
Timon (stopping his work, and leaning on his spade). O Jupiter!—god of Friendship, god of Hospitality, god of Sociality, god of the Hearth, Lightning-flasher, Oath-protector, Cloud-compeller, Thunderer,—or by whatever name those moon-struck poets please to call you (especially when they have a hitch in the verse, for then your great stock of titles helps to prop a lame line, or fill a gap in the metre),—where be your flashing lightnings now, and your rolling thunders, and that terrible levin-bolt of yours, blazing and red-hot? Plainly all these are nonsense,—a mere humbug of the poets, nothing but sonorous words. That thunderbolt which they are always singing of, that strikes so far and is so ready to hand,—it's quenched, I suppose? got cold, and hasn't a spark of fire left in it to scorch rascals. A man who has committed perjury is more afraid, now, of the snuff of last night's lamp than of your invincible lightning. 'Tis just as if you were to throw the stump of a torch among them,—they would have no fear of the fire or smoke, but only of getting besmirched with the black from it.
Ah, Jupiter! in your youthful days, when you were hot-blooded and quick-tempered, then you used to deal summary justice against knaves and villains: never made truce with them for a day: but the lightning was always at work, and the ægis always shaking over them, and the thunder rolling, and the bolts continually launched here and there, like a skirmish of sharp-shooters: and earthquakes shook us all like beans in a sieve, and snow came in heaps, and hail like pebbles, and—for I'm determined, you see, to speak my mind to you—then your rain was good strong rain,—each drop like a river. Why, in Deucalion's days, there rose such a deluge in no time, that everything was drowned except one little ark that stuck on Mount Lycôris, and preserved one little surviving spark of human life,—in order, I suppose, to breed a new generation worse than the other.
Well—you see the consequences of your laziness, and it serves you right. No man now offers you a sacrifice, or puts a garland on you, except at odd times the winners at Olympia; and they do it not because they feel under any obligation to do it, but merely in compliance with a kind of old custom. They'll very soon make you like Saturn, and take all your honours from you, though you think yourself the grandest of the gods. I say nothing as to how often they have robbed your temples—nay, some fellows, I hear, actually laid hands on your sacred person at Olympia; while you,—the great thunder-god,—did not even trouble yourself to set the dogs at them, or rouse the neighbours, but sat there quiet,—you, the celebrated Giant-killer and Titan-queller, as they call you,—while they cut your golden locks off your royal head, though you had a twenty-foot thunderbolt in your hand all the while. When does your High Mightiness mean to put a stop to all this which you are allowing to go on? How many conflagrations like Phaeton's, how many deluges like Deucalion's, does such a world as this deserve?
To pass now from public iniquities to my own case. After raising so many Athenians from poverty to wealth and greatness,—after helping every man that was in want—or rather, pouring my riches out wholesale to serve my friends,—when I have brought myself to poverty by this, these men utterly refuse to know me; men who used to honour me, worship me, hang on my very nod, now will not even look at me. If I meet any of them as I walk, they pass me without a glance, as though I were some old sepulchral stone fallen down through lapse of years: while those who see me in the distance turn into another path, as if I were some ill-omened vision which they feared to meet or look upon—I, who was so lately their benefactor and preserver!
So, in my distress, I have girt myself with skins, and retreated to this far corner; and here I dig the ground for four obols a day,—and talk philosophy to my spade and myself. One point I think I gain here; I shall no longer see the worthless in prosperity—for that were worse to bear than all. Now then, Son of Saturn and Rhea, wake up at last from this long deep slumber—for you've slept longer than Epimenides[9]—and blow your thunderbolt hot again, or heat it afresh in Ætna, and make it blaze lustily, and show a little righteous wrath, worthy of the Jove of younger days; unless, indeed, that be a true story which the Cretans tell, and you be dead and buried too.
Jupiter (in Olympus, disturbed by Timon's clamorous expostulations below). Who in the world, Mercury, is this fellow that's bawling so from Attica, down at the foot of Hymettus,—a perfect scarecrow, he looks, in a dirty goat-skin? Digging, I think he is, by his stooping posture. He's a very noisy impudent fellow. Some philosopher, I fancy, or he wouldn't use such blasphemous language.
Mercury. What do you say, father? don't you know Timon of Athens? He's the man who so often used to treat us with such magnificent sacrifices; that nouveau riche, you know, who used to offer whole hecatombs; at whose expense we were so splendidly entertained at the Diasia.
Jup. What a sad reverse of fortune! That fine, handsome, rich fellow, who had used to have such troops of friends round him! What has brought him to this?—so squalid and miserable, and having to dig for his bread, I suppose, by the way he drives his spade into the ground?
Mercury proceeds to inform his father that Timon's reckless generosity has reduced him to poverty, and that all the friends who shared his bounty have now deserted him. He has left the ungrateful city in disgust, and hired himself out as a day-labourer in the country. Jupiter, however, is not going to follow the example of mankind, and neglect the man from whom, in his day of prosperity, he has received so many favours. He is sorry that his case has hitherto escaped his notice; but really the noise and clamour those Athenians make with all their philosophical disputes has so disgusted him, that for some time he has not turned his eyes in their direction. "Go down to him at once," he says to Mercury, "and take Plutus with you, with a good supply of money;[10] and let Plutus take care not to leave him again so easily as he did before. As for these ungrateful friends of his, they shall have their deserts, as soon as ever I can get my lightning mended. I broke two of my strongest bolts the other day, launching them in a passion against Anaxagoras the Sophist, who was teaching his followers that we gods were an utter impossibility in the nature of things. I missed him (Pericles put his hand in the way),[11] and the lightning struck the temple of Castor, I am sorry to say, and destroyed it; but my bolt was all but shivered itself against the rock there. However, those rascals will be punished enough for the present, when they see Timon grown rich again."
Merc. See now, what a thing it is to make a clamour, and to be impudent and troublesome! I don't mean for lawyers only, but for those who put up prayers to heaven. Here's Timon going to be set up again as a rich man out of the extreme of poverty, all because of his noise and bold words attracting Jupiter's notice! If he had bent his back to his digging in silence, he might have dug on till doomsday without Jupiter's noticing him. (He goes off, and returns with Plutus.)
Plutus. I shan't go near that fellow, Jupiter.
Jup. How, my good Plutus,—not when I bid you?
Plu. No. He insulted me—turned me out of his house, and scattered me in all directions—me, the old friend of the family—all but pitched me out of doors, as if I burnt his fingers. What! go back to him, to be thrown to his parasites, and toadies, and harlots? No: send me to those who value the gift, who will make much of me, who honour me and desire my company; and let all those fools keep house still with Poverty, who prefer her to me. Let them get her to give them a spade and an old sheep-skin, and go dig for their twopence a-day, after squandering thousands in gifts to their friends.
Jup. Timon will never behave so to you again. His spade-husbandry will have taught him pretty well (unless his back's made of stuff that can't feel) that you are to be preferred to Poverty. You're rather a discontented personage, too: you blame Timon because he opened his doors and let you go where you liked, and neither locked you up nor watched you jealously; whereas at other times you cry out against the rich, saying that they confine you with bolts and bars, and put seals on you, so that you never get so much as a glimpse of daylight. You used to complain to me that you were suffocated in the dark holes they kept you in; and I must say you used to look quite pale and careworn, and your fingers quite contracted from the constant habit of counting; and you often threatened to escape from such confinement the moment you had a chance.
Plutus replies to Jupiter with some sensible remarks as to there being a mean between the prodigal and the miser; but he consents to pay Timon a visit at Jupiter's command, though feeling, as he says, that he might as well get into one of the Danaids' leaky water-jars, so sure is he to filter rapidly through the hands of such a master. The god of Riches, we must remember, is blind; and Mercury, who has to escort him to Athens, recommends him to hold fast by his coat-tail all the way down. Jupiter desires his messenger to call at Ætna on his way, and send up the Cyclops to mend his broken thunderbolt.
They find Timon hard at work, in the company of Poverty. But she has brought with her a band of other companions—Labour, and Perseverance, and Wisdom, and Fortitude. This is a stronger bodyguard, as Mercury observes, than Plutus ever gathers round him. The god of Riches confesses it; he can be of no service to a man who has such friends about him, and he offers to begone at once. But Mercury reminds him of the will of Jove. Poverty pleads in vain that she has rescued him from his old associates, Sloth and Luxury, and is now forming him to virtue in her own more wholesome school; and though Timon asks with some roughness to be left still under her instruction, and bids Plutus begone "to make fools of other men as he has once of him," he is overruled by Mercury's appeal to his sense of gratitude to Jupiter, who has taken so much trouble to help him. Poverty reluctantly takes her leave, and with her depart Labour and Wisdom and the rest of her company.
Digging on in the earth by direction of Plutus, Timon finds an immense buried treasure, and the sight at once reawakens his love of riches. But it now takes another and more selfish form. Henceforth he will live for himself and not for others, and become the enemy of men as he had formerly been their injudicious friend. The name which he desires to be known by is that of "The Misanthrope."[12] The companions of his former days of splendour—who had been treated by him with such munificence, and had repaid him with such ingratitude—hear of his new wealth, and flock to him to make their excuses and apologies, to tender him all kinds of services, and to offer him public honours, if he will only give them a little of his new riches. Blows from his spade, and showers of stones, are his only answer. And in this spirit the Dialogue (which concludes somewhat abruptly) leaves him.
Timon the Misanthrope was probably a real personage, round whose name many fictitious anecdotes gathered. Aristophanes refers to him move than once in his comedies as a well-known character; Plato mentions him, and, if we may trust Plutarch, he lived about the time of the Peloponnesian war. This latter writer speaks of his intimacy with the Cynic Apemantus, introduced in Shakspeare's play,[13] and gives us an anecdote of him in connection with Alcibiades. Apemantus, we are told, asked Timon why he so much affected the company of that young gallant, hating all other men as he professed to do? "Because," replied Timon, "I foresee that he shall one day become a great scourge to those I hate most—the Athenians."
- ↑ Prometheus had cut up a victim, and divided the portions into two heaps, of which he gave Jupiter his choice. Jupiter chose that which seemed to have the best share of fat at the top, but found that beneath there was nothing but bones.
- ↑ "'What use could the Deity have for man,' said Epicurus, 'that He should create him?' Surely, that there might be a being that could understand His works; that could have sense to admire and voice to proclaim His providence in arrangement, His plan of operation, His perfection in completing all."—Lactantius, Div. Instit., b. vii. c. 5.
- ↑ A burlesque of sundry passages in Homer.
- ↑ Bendis was a Thracian goddess, in whom Herodotus recognises Diana. The Athenians had introduced her, and held a festival in her honour. Atthis and Mēn (Lunus) were Phrygian deities: Mithras was the Persian sun-god.
- ↑ Sixteen was the recognised number of legitimate gods.
- ↑ Lucian repeatedly brings forward, in these Dialogues, the gasconade which Homer put into the mouth of Jupiter, Il. viii. 18—
"A olden chain let down from heaven, and all,
Both gads and goddesses, your strength apply;
Yet will ye fail to drag from heaven to earth,
Strive as ye may, your mighty master Jove:
But if I choose to make my power be known,
The earth itself and ocean I could raise,
And binding round Olympus' ridge the cord,
Leave them suspended so in middle air."—(Lord Derby.)Jupiter here dislikes Mercury's allusion to it.
- ↑ Lord Lyttelton, in his "Dialogues of the Dead," makes Lucian give his own explanation of this passage to Rabelais, who does not quite understand the introduction of Momus. "I think our priests admitted Momus into our heaven as the Indians are said to worship the Devil,—through fear. hey had a mind to keep fair with him. For we may talk of the Giants as we will, but to our Gods there can be no enemy so formidable as he. Ridicule is the terror of all false religions."
- ↑ The story is told by Herodotus, iii. 154.
- ↑ The Rip van Winkle of classic story. He is said to have sought shelter in a cave from the heat of the sun, while keeping his father's sheep, and to have slept there for fifty-seven years.
- ↑ "Plutus, the god of gold,
Is but his steward."
—Shaksp., "Timon," act i. sc. 1.The introduction of Plutus's name into this tragedy makes one curious to know whether the author was acquainted (through any translation) either with this dialogue of Lucian's or with the "Plutus" of Aristophanes.
- ↑ Anaxagoras, when accused of impiety and brought to trial, was protected by Pericles, who had been his pupil.
- ↑
"I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind."
—Shaksp., "Timon," act iv. sc. 3. - ↑ Shakspeare's play is founded chiefly on the twenty-eighth novel in Painter's "Palace of Pleasure."