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Lucian of Samosata (lucian-of-samosata)Fugi 26 · perseus-eng2More by Lucian of Samosata (lucian-of-samosata)
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APOLLO Is the report true, father, that someone threw himself bodily into the fire, in the very face of the Olympic festivities, quite an elderly man, not a bad hand at such hocus-pocus? Selene told me, saying that she herself had seen him burning.The Olympic games were timed to come at the full of the moon, and the cremation took place at moon-rise (Peregr., 36). ZEUS Yes, quite true, Apollo. If only it had never happened! APOLLO Was the old man so good? Was he not worthy of a death by fire? ZEUS Yes, that he was, very likely.By dividing Apollo’s question and emphasising the negative in the second part, the translation seeks to reproduce the ambiguity of Zeus’s reply, which in the Greek is sufficiently subtle to have misled more than one scholar into the notion that Zeus (and therefore Lucian) is praising Peregrinus. Nothing could be farther from his (or Lucian’s) real thought, that the fellow deserved death. The ambiguity is of course deliberate, to foil and annoy “Scarabee” and his sort; cf. below, § 7. But my point is that I remember having had to put up with a great deal of annoyance at the time on account of a horrid stench such as you might expect to arise from roasting human bodies. In fact, if I had not at once gone straight to Araby, I should have come to a sad end, you may depend on it, from the awfulness of the reek. Even as it was, amid all that fragrance and abundance of sweet scents, with frankincense in profusion, my nostrils hardly consented to forget and unlearn the taint of that odour; why, even now I almost retch at the memory of it!
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APOLLO What was his idea, Zeus, in doing that to himself, or what was the good of his getting incinerated by jumping into the blazing pyre? ZEUS Well, that criticism, my boy, you had better address first to Empedocles, who himself sprung into that crater in Sicily. APOLLO A terrible case of melancholia, that! But this man—what reason in the world did he have for wanting to do it? ZEUS I will repeat for you a speech of his own, which he delivered to the assembled pilgrims, defending himself before them for putting an end to himself.
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He said, if my memory serves me—But who is this woman coming up in haste, excited and tearful, like someone suffering great wrongs? Stay, it is Philosophy, and she is calling upon me by name, in bitterness of spirit. Why the tears, my daughter? Why have you left the world and come here? Surely it cannot be that the common sort have once again combined against you as before, when they put Socrates to death through a charge brought by Anytus, and that you are fleeing from them for that reason? PHILOSOPHY Nothing of the sort, father. On the contrary, they—the multitude—spoke well of me and held me in honour, respecting, admiring, and all but worshipping me, even if they did not much understand what I said. But the others—how shall I style them?— those who say they are my familiars and friends and creep under the cloak of my name, they are the people who have done me the direst possible injuries.
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ZEUS Have the philosophers made a plot against you? PHILOSOPHY By no means, father. Why, they themselves have been wronged in common with me! ZEUS At whose hands, then, have you been wronged, if you have no fault to find either with the common sort or with the philosophers? PHILOSOPHY There are some, Zeus, who occupy a middle ground between the multitude and the philosophers. In deportment, glance, and gait they are like us, and similarly dressed; as a matter of fact, they want to be enlisted under my command and they enroll themselves under my name, saying that they are my pupils, disciples, and devotees. Nevertheless, their abominable way of living, full of ignorance, impudence, and wantonness, is no trifling outrage against me. Itis they, father, who have inflicted the wrongs that have made me flee.
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ZEUS This is a sad state of affairs, daughter. But in just what way have they wronged you? PHILOSOPHY See for yourself, father, whether the wrongs are trifling. When you observed that the life of man was full of wrongdoing and transgression because stupidity and high-handedness were ingrained in it, and disturbed it, you pitied humanity, harried as it was by ignorance, and therefore sent me down, enjoining me to see to it that they should stop wronging each other, doing violence, and living like beasts; that they should instead fix their eyes on the verities and manage their society more peaceably. Anyhow, you said to me in sending me down: “What men do and how they are affected by stupidity, daughter, you see for yourself. I pity them, and so, as I think that you alone might be able to cure what is going on, I have selected you from among us all and send you to effect the cure.”
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ZEUS
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I know I said a great deal at the time, including all this. But go on and tell me what followed, how they received you when you flew down for the first time and what has befallen you now at their hands.
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PHILOSOPHY
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When I sped off, father, I did not head for the Greeks straightway, but as it seemed to me the more difficult part of my task to educate and instruct the foreigners, I decided to do that first; the Greek world I let be, as possible to subject very easily and likely (I thought so, anyhow) to take the bridle and submit to the harness very soon. Making for the Indians to begin with, the most numerous population in the world, I had na difficulty about persuading them to come down off their elephants and associate with me. Consequently, a whole tribe, the Brahmans, who border upon the Nechraei and the Oxydracae,
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are all enlisted under my command and not only live in accordance with my tenets, honoured by all their neighbours, but die a marvellous kind of death.
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ZEUS
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You mean the gymnosophists.
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Anyhow, I am told, among other things about them, that they ascend a very lofty pyre and endure cremation without any change in their outward appearance or their sitting position.
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But that is nothing much. Just now, for example, at Olympia I saw the same sort of thing done, and very likely you too were there at the time when the old man was burned.
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I did not even go to Olympia, father, for fear of those detestable fellows whom I spoke of, since I saw many of them taking their way there in order to upbraid the assembled pilgrims and fill the back room of the temple with the noise of their howling.
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Consequently, I did not see how he died.
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But to resume—after the Brahmans I went direct to Ethiopia, and then down to Egypt; and after associating with their priests and prophets and instructing them in religion, I departed for Babylon, to initiate Chaldeans and Magi; then from there to Scythia, and then to Thrace, where I conversed with Eumolpus and Orpheus, whom I sent in advance to Greece, one of them, Eumolpus, to give them the mysteries, as he had learned all about religion from me, and the other to win them over by the witchery of his music. Then I followed at once on their heels.
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Just at first, on my arrival, the Greeks neither welcomed me very warmly nor shut the door in m face outright. But gradually, as I associated wit them, I attached to myself seven companions and pupils from among them all; then another from Samos, another from Ephesus, and one more from Abdera—only a few in all.
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After them, the Sophist tribe somehow or other fastened themselves to my skirts. They were neither profoundly interested in my teaching nor altogether at variance, but like the Hippocentaur breed, something composite and mixed, astray in the interspace between quackery and philosophy, neither completely addicted to ignorance nor yet able to keep me envisioned with an intent gaze; being purblind, as it were, through their dim-sightedness they merely glimpsed at times an indistinct, dim presentment or shadow of me, yet thought they had discerned everything with accuracy. So there flared up among them that useless and superfluous “wisdom” of theirs, in their own opinion invincible—those clever, baffling, absurd replies and perplexing, mazy queries.
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Then, on being checked and shown up by my comrades, they were indignant and combined against them, at length bringing them before courts and handing them over to drink the hemlock. I ought perhaps at that time to have fled incontinently, no longer putting up with their company; but Antisthenes and Diogenes, and presently Crates and Menippus, ou know,
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persuaded me to mete them out an additional modicum of delay. O that I had not done so! for I should not have undergone such sufferings later.
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ZEUS You have not yet told me what wrongs have been done you, Philosophy; you merely vent your indignation. PHILOSOPHY But do listen, Zeus, and hear how great they are. There is an abominable class of men, for the most part slaves and hirelings, who had nothing to do with me in childhood for lack of leisure, since they were performing the work of slaves or hirelings or learning such trades as you would expect their like to learn—cobbling, building, busying themselves with fuller’s tubs, or carding wool to make it easy for the women to work, easy to wind, and easy to draw off when they twist a yarn or spin a thread. Well, while they were following such occupations in youth, they did not even know my name. But when they began to be reckoned as adults and noticed how much respect my companions have from the multitude and how men tolerate their plain-speaking, delight in their ministrations, hearken to their advice, and cower under their censure, they considered all this to be a suzerainty of no mean order.
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Now to learn all that is requisite for such a calling would have been a long task, say rather an impossible one. Their trades, however, were petty, laborious, and barely able to supply them with just enough. To some, moreover, servitude seemed grievous and (as indeed it is) intolerable. It seemed best to them, therefore, as they reflected upon the matter, to let go their last anchor, which men that sail the seas call the “sacred” one;
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so, resorting to good old Desperation, inviting the support, too, of Hardihood, Stupidity, and Shamelessness, who are their principal partisans, and committing to memory novel terms of abuse, in order to have them at hand and at their
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tongue’s end, with these as their only countersigns (you perceive what a rare equipment it is for philosophy), they very plausibly transform themselves in looks and apparel to counterfeit my very self, doing, I vow, the same sort of thing that Aesop says the jackass in Cyme did, who put on a lion skin and began to bray harshly, claiming to be a lion himself; and no doubt there were actually some who believed him!
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What characterises us is very easily attainable, as you know, and open to imitation—I mean what meets the eye. It does not require much ceremony to don a short cloak, sling on a wallet, carry a staff in one’s hand, and shout—say rather, bray, or howl, and slang everyone. Assurance of not suffering for it was bound to be afforded them by the usual respect for the cloth. Freedom is in prospect, against the will of their master, who, even if he should care to assert possession by force, would get beaten with the staff. Bread, too, is no longer scanty or, as before, limited to bannocks of barley; and what goes with it is not salt fish or thyme but meat of all sorts and wine of the sweetest, and money from whomsoever they will; for they collect tribute, going from house to house, or, as they themselves express it, they “shear the sheep”; and they expect many to give, either out of respect for their cloth or for fear of their abusive language.
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Moreover, they discerned, I assume, the further advantage that they would be on an equal footing with true philosophers, and that there would be nobody who could pass judgment and draw distinctions in such matters, if only the externals were similar. For, to begin with, they do not even tolerate investigation if you question them ever so temperately and concisely; at once they begin shouting and take refuge in their peculiar citadel, abusiveness and a ready staff. Also, if you ask about their works, their words are copious, and if you wish to judge them by their words, they want you to consider their lives.
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Consequently, every city is filled with such upstarts, particularly with those who enter the names of Diogenes, Antisthenes, and Crates as their patrons and enlist in the army ofthe dog. Those fellows have not in any way imitated the good that there is in the nature of dogs, as, for instance, guarding property, keeping at home, loving their masters, or remembering kindnesses, but their barking, gluttony, thievishness, excessive interest in females, truckling, fawning upon people who give them things, and hanging about tables—all this they have copied with painful accuracy.
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You shall see what will happen presently. All the men in the workshops will spring to their feet and leave their trades deserted when they see that by toiling and moiling from morning till night, doubled over their tasks, they merely eke out a bare existence from such wage-earning, while idle frauds live in unlimited plenty, asking for things in a lordly way, getting them without effort, acting indignant if they do not, and bestowing no praise even if they do. It seems to them that this is ‘life in the age of Cronus,’ and really that sheer honey is distilling into their mouths from the sky!
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The thing would not be so dreadful if they offended against us only by being what they are. But although outwardly and in public they appear very
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reverend and stern, if they get a handsome boy or a pretty woman in their clutches or hope to, it is best to veil their conduct in silence. Some even carry off the wives of their hosts,
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to seduce them after the pattern of that young Trojan,
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pretending that the women are going to become philosophers; then they tender them, as common property, to all their associates and think they are carrying out a tenet of Plato’s,
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when they do not know on what terms that holy man thought it right for women to be so regarded.
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What they do at drinking-parties, how intoxicated they become, would make a long story. And while they do all this, you cannot imagine how they berate drunkenness and adultery and lewdness and covetousness. Indeed you could not find any two things so opposed to each other as their words and their deeds. For instance, they claim to hate toadying, when as far as that goes they are able to outdo Gnathonides or Struthias;
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and although they exhort everyone else to tell the truth, they themselves cannot so much as move their tongues except ina lie. To all of them pleasure is nominally an odious thing and Epicurus a foeman; but in practice they do everything for the sake of it. In irascibility, pettishness, and proneness to anger they are beyond young children; indeed, they give no little amusement to onlookers when their blood boils up in
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them for some trivial reason, so that they look livid in colour, with a reckless, insane stare, and foam (or rather, venom) fills their mouths.
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And “may you never chance to be there”
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when that vile filth of theirs is exuded! “As to gold or silver, Heracles! I do not want even to ownit. An obol is enough, so that I can buy lupines, for a spring or a stream will supply me with drink.” Then after a little they demand, not obols nor a few drachmas, but whole fortunes. What shipman could make as much from his cargoes as philosophy contributes to these fellows in the way of gain? And then, when they have levied tribute and stocked themselves up to their heart’s content, throwing off that ill-conditioned philosopher’s cloak, they buy farms every now and then, and luxurious clothing, and long-haired pages, and whole apartmenthouses, bidding a long farewell to the wallet of Crates, the mantle of Antisthenes, and the jar of Diogenes.
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The unschooled, seeing all this, now spit scornfully at philosophy, thinking that all of us are like this and blaming me for my teachings, so that for a long time now it has been impossible for me to win over a single one of them. I am in the same fix as Penelope,
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for truly all that I weave is instantly unravelled again; and Stupidity and Wrongdoing laugh in my face to see that I cannot bring my work to completion and my toil to an end.
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ZEUS Ye gods! what treatment our dear Philosophy has had from those scoundrels! It is high time, then, to see what is to be done and how they are to be punished. Well, the thunderbolt despatches at a single blow, and the death is a swift one. APOLLO I will offer you a suggestion, father, for I myself have come to detest the knaves; the Muses mean nothing to them, so I am indignant on behalf of the Nine. Those fellows are by no means worthy of a thunderbolt or of that right hand of yours. Send Hermes down to get after them, if you think best, with unlimited powers in the matter of their punishment. As he himself is interested in argumentation, he will very soon know those who are genuine students of philosophy and those who are not. Then he will commend the former, naturally, and the latter will be punished as he sees fit in the circumstances.
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ZEUS A good idea, Apollo. But you go too, Heracles; take along Philosophy herself and all be off, as quickly as you can, to the world. Bear in mind that you will be doing a thirteenth labour of no mean order if you exterminate such pestilential, shameless beasts. HERACLES On my word, father, I should have preferred to clean out the muck of Augeas once more, rather than to get involved with these creatures. Let us be off, however. PHILOSOPHY I do not want to go with you, but I must, in accordance with father’s orders.
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HERMES Let us be going down, so that we may exterminate at least a few of them to-day. What direction should we take, Philosophy? You know where they are. In Greece, no doubt? PHILOSOPHY Not by any means, or only a few, those who are genuine students of philosophy, Hermes. These others have no use for Attic poverty; we must look for them in some quarter where much gold or silver is mined. HERMES Then we must make straight for Thrace. HERACLES Quite right, and indeed I will show you the way, as I know the whole of Thrace from repeated visits. So, if you please, let us now take this direction. HERMES What direction do you mean?
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HERACLES Do you see two ranges, Hermes and Philosophy, the highest and most beautiful of all mountains (the higher is Haemus, the one opposite is Rhodope), and a plain of great fertility outspread beneath them, beginning at the very foothills of each? Also, three very beautiful eminences standing up, not so rough as to be shapeless? They look like multiple citadels belonging to the city beneath them. For the city, too, is now in sight. HERMES Yes, by Zeus, Heracles, the greatest and loveliest of all cities! In fact, its beauty is radiant from afar. And also, a very large river flows past it, coming quite close to it. HERACLES That is the Hebrus, and the city was built by the famous Philip.Philippopolis. We are now close to earth and the clouds are above us, so let us make a landing, with the blessing of Heaven.
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HERMES Very well. But what is to be done now? How are we to track the beasts out? HERACLES That is up to you, Hermes; you are a crier, so be quick and do your office. HERMES Nothing hard about that, but I do not know their names. Tell me, Philosophy, what I am to call them, and their marks of identification as well. PHILOSOPHY I myself do not know for certain what they are called, because of my not having had anything to do with them ever. But to judge from the craving for riches which they have, you will not make any mistake if you call them Richman or Richmews or Richrenown or Goodrich or Richards.
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HERMES Right you are.—But who are these people and why are they too looking about them? However, they are coming up and want to ask a question. HUSBAND Could you tell us, gentlemen, or you, kind lady, whether you have seen three rogues together, and a woman with her hair closely clipped in the Spartan style, boyish-looking and quite masculine? PHILOSOPHY Aha! They are looking for our quarry! HUSBAND How yours? Those fellows are all fugitive slaves, and for my part I am particularly in search of the woman, whom they have kidnapped. HERMES You will soon find out why we are in search of them. But at present let us make a joint proclamation. «If anyone has seen a Paphlagonian slave, one of those barbarians from Sinope, with a name of the kind that has ‘rich’ in it, sallow, close-cropped,As a Cynic, the man should wear his hair long; but we are informed that he has Stoic leanings (§ 31). wearing a long beard, with a wallet slung from his shoulder and a short cloak about him, quick- tempered, uneducated, harsh-voiced, and abusive, let him give information for the stipulated reward.”
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FIRST SLAVE-OWNER Your proclamation does not tally, man! His name when I had him was Scarabee; furthermore, he wore his hair long, kept his chin hairless, and knew my trade. It was his business to sit in my fuller’s shop and shear off the excessive nap that makes cloaks fuzzy. PHILOSOPHY That is the very man, your slave; but now he looks like a philosopher, for he has given himself a thorough dry-cleaning. FIRST SLAVE-OWNER (to Second and Third) The impudence of him! Scarabee is setting up for a philosopher, she says, and we do not enter into his speculations at all!
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SECOND SLAVE-OWNER Never mind, we shall find them all, for this woman knows them, by what she says. HERMES Who is this other person coming up, Heracles, the handsome man with the lyre? HERACLES It is Orpheus, my shipmate on the Argo, the most tuneful of all chanteymen. Indeed, as we rowed to his singing, we hardly grew tired at all. Good-day to you, Orpheus, best of men and first of musicians. Surely you have not forgotten Heracles. ORPHEUS A very good-day to you also, Philosophy, Heracles, and Hermes. But the time has come to pay your reward, since I am very well acquainted with the man for whom you are looking. HERMES Then show us where he is, son of Calliope, for you have no need of gold, I take it, being a wise man. ORPHEUS You are right. I will show you the house where he lives, but not the man himself, so as not to be slanged by him. He is excessively foul-mouthed; that is the only thing he has thoroughly mastered. HERMES Only show us. ORPHEUS Here it is, close by. I am going away from your neighbourhood, so that I may not even see him.
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PHILOSOPHY Hold! Is not that the voice of a woman, reciting something of Homer’s? HERMES Yes, surely; but let us hear what she is saying. WOMAN Hateful to me that man, no less than the portals of Hades, Who in his heart loves gold, and yet maintains that he does not.Iliad, IX, 312 (= Odyssey, XIV, 156) and313, which reads ὅς χ' ἕτερον ἐν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ. HERMES Then you must needs hate Scarabee! WOMAN Ever his host he abuseth, if anyone showeth him kindness.Iliad, II, 354, with a slight change, ῥέξεν for ῥέξαι. Iliad, I, 325; TI, 202, 246 (the close is Lucian’s: Homer has λιγύς, περ ἐὼν. ἀγορητής), and 214, or HUSBAND That verse refers to me, for he went off with my wife because I took him in. WOMAN Heavy with wine, dog-eyed, with the timid heart of a roe-deer, Never of any account in the fray or in giving of counsel, Loose-mouthed fool, Thersites, of evil jackdaws the foremost * Idle strife with kings to promote in no spirit of order! 8 FIRST SLAVE-OWNER The verses just fit the scoundrel! WOMAN Dog in the fore-parts, aye, and a lion behind; in the middle a she-goat, Shedding the terrible reek of the third dog’s furious onslaught!Iliad, VI, 181 and182 with liberal alterations. The original is: Πρόσθε λέων, ὄπιθεν δὲ δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα δεινὸν ἀποπνείουσα πυρὸς μένος αἰθομένοιο.
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HUSBAND Dear me, wife! how outrageously you have been treated by all those dogs! It is even said that they have lined her. HERMES No fear, you will soon have her bringing into the world a Cerberus or a Geryon, to make more work for Heracles here.The progeny of three Cynics is expected to have three heads, like the dog Cerberus, whom Heracles, as his eleventh labour, brought up from Hades, or three bodies, like Geryon, whose cattle Heracles lifted as his tenth labour. —But they are coming out, so there is no need to knock at the door. FIRST SLAVE-OWNER I’ve got you, Scarabee! Now you have nothing to say, have you? Come, let us see what your wallet. has in it, lupines, no doubt, or a crust of bread. No, by Zeus! A purse of gold! HERACLES Don’t be surprised! Formerly, in Greece, he claimed to be a Cynic, but here he reveals himself in his true colours as a Chrysippean. Therefore you shall soon see him a Cleanthes, for he is going to be hung up by the beard because he is such a villain.Lucian is playing on names here. When Scarabee was a Cynic, he had gone to the “dogs.” Now, as a devotee of gold, he can only be styled a Chrysippean; ergo a Stoic. It may be that Lucian is japing at something in the history of Cleanthes with his talk about beards and hanging, but there is no evidence except a late scholium on Longaevi, 19, which says that Cleanthes died of starvation or strangulation. Anyhow, hanging Scarabee up by the beard will certainly make a “Famous Posy” of him.
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SECOND SLAVE-OWNER And you, scoundrel! are you not Pomander, who ran away from me? Nobody else! O how you make me laugh! After that, what cannot happen? Even Pomander a philosopher! HERMES This third fellow—has he no master among you? THIRD SLAVE-OWNER Yes, I am his master, but even so, I gladly consign him to perdition! Why? HERMES THIRD SLAVE-OWNER Because he is a fearful sort of rotter. The name we used to call him was Stinkadore. HERMES Heracles, deliver us! do you hear that? And then wallet and staff! Here, you! (to HusBaNpD) Take away your wife, yourself! HUSBAND Never in the world! I don’t care to take her away with an old book under her apron. HERMES Book? What do you mean? HUSBAND My dear fellow, there is a book called Tricipitine.The book called Three-Headed was an attack on Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, attributed to Theopompus (cf. below, p. 409) but probably written by Anaximenes. HERMES Nothing surprising in that, as there is one called Triphallic.The Triphales of Aristophanes, supposed to have been a scurrilous satire on Alcibiades.
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PHILOSOPHY It is for you, Hermes, to give judgement now. HERMES This is my decision. As for the woman, to insure against her bringing into the world anything portentous or many-headed, she shall go back to Greece to live with her husband. This pair of runaway slaves shall be turned over to their masters and continue to learn their former trades; Pomander to wash dirty linen, Stinkadore once again to mend torn cloaks; but first they shall both be beaten with mallows.This meant a good caning, for the mallow that is meant is the kind that according to Theophrastus “grows tall and becomes tree-like” and “becomes as great as a spear, and men accordingly use it as a walking-stick’? (Lavatera arborea; see Sir A. Hort’s Theophrastus, Enguiry into Plants (L.C.L.), Vol. I, p. 25, and Vol. II, p. 463). But probably its prescription by Lucian in this and other similar cases is due in part at least to the implication of ‘softness’ in the name. Finally, this fellow (to scaRABEE) shall be turned over to the pitch-plasterers, so that he may be murdered by having his hair pulled out, and with filthy, nasty pitch, besides; then he shall be taken to the summit of Haemus and left standing there naked in the snow with his feet tied together. SCARABEE Ah, woe is me! Oh, oh! Alackaday! FIRST SLAVE-OWNER Why are you lugging in that quotation out of those melodramatic discourses of yours? Come along with me to the pitch-plasterers now; but first strip off that lion skin, that you may be known for the ass that you are.