Reader

POLYSTRATUS This is the lady’s reply: “Lycinus, I have discerned, to be sure, from what you have written that your friendliness and esteem for me is great, for nobody would bestow such high praise if he were not writing in a friendly spirit. But my own attitude, please understand, is this. In general, I do not care for people whose disposition inclines to flattery, but consider such persons deceivers and not at all generous in their natures. Above all, in the matter of compliments, when anyone in praising me employs vulgar and immoderate extravagances I blush and almost stop my ears, and the thing seems to me more like abuse than praise.

For praise is endurable only as long as the person who is being praised recognizes that everything which is said is appropriate to him, Whatever goes beyond that is alien, and outright flattery. “Yet,” said she, “I know many who like it if, in praising them, one bestows upon them qualities which they do not possess; for example, if they are old, congratulates them upon their youthfulness, or if they are ugly, clothes them in the beauty of a Nireus or a Phaon. They think that their appearance will be transformed by these compliments, and that they will regain their youth afresh, as Pelias thought to do.

That, however, is not the case. Praise would be highly valuable if it were possible to derive any actual profit from it through such extravagant employment. But as it is, those people in my opinion are in the same case that an ugly man would be in if someone should officiously put a handsome mask upon him and he were to pride himself greatly upon his beauty, regardless of the fact that it was detachable and could be destroyed by the first comer, in which event he would look still more ridiculous when he stood revealed in his own proper features and showed what ugliness had been hidden behind that lovely mask. Or it would be as if someone who was small should put on the buskins of an actor and try to compete in height with those who, on an even footing, overtop him by a full cubit.”

She mentioned an instance in point. She said that a woman of conspicuous position, who was pretty and attractive in every other way, but small, and far beneath the well-proportioned height, was being lauded in song by a certain poet, not only on all other grounds, but because she was fair and tall; he likened her to a black poplar for goodly stature and straightness! Well, she was delighted with the compliment, just as if she were going to grow to match the song, and lifted her hand in approval. So the poet gave many encores, seeing that she liked to be praised, until at last one of the company leaned over to his ear and said: “Have done with it, man—you might make her stand up!”

Something similar and much more comical was done, she said, by Stratonice, the wife of Seleucus, who set a competition for the poets, with a talent as the prize, to see which of them could best praise her hair, in spite of the fact that she was bald and had not even a paltry few hairs of her own. Nevertheless, with her head in that pitiful state, when everybody knew that a long illness had affected her in that way, she listened to those rascally poets while they called her hair hyacinthine, and platted soft braids of it, and compared to wild parsley what did not even exist at all!

She made fun of all such people as these, who surrender themselves to flatterers, and she added, too, that many wish to be similarly flattered and cozened in portraits as well as in complimentary speeches. “In fact,” said she, “they delight most of all in those painters who make the prettiest pictures of them. And there are some who even direct the artists to take away a little of the nose, or paint the eyes blacker, or give them any other characteristic that they covet; and then, in their blissful ignorance, they hang wreaths of flowers upon portraits of other people, not in the least like themselves!”

That is about what she had to say; she commended most of the piece, but could not put up with one feature of it, that you compared her to goddesses, to Hera and Aphrodite. ‘Such praise,” she said, “is too high for me; indeed, too high for human kind. For my part I did not want you to compare me even to those great ladies, Penelope and Arete and Theano, let alone the noblest of the goddesses. Besides, I am very superstitious and

timorous in all that concerns the gods. Consequently, I am afraid I may be thought to resemble Cassiopeia

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if I accept such praise as yours; and yet she, as a matter of fact, compared herself only to the Nereids and was duly reverential toward Hera and Aphrodite.”

In view of this, Lycinus, she said that you must rewrite everything of that sort, or else for her part she calls the goddesses to witness that you wrote it without her consent, and says you know that the book will annoy her if it circulates in the form in which you have now couched it, which is not at all reverential or pious in its allusions to the gods. She thought, too, that it would be considered a sacrilege and a sin on her own part if she should allow herself to be said to resemble Cnidian Aphrodite, and Our Lady in the Gardens. Moreover, she wanted to remind you of the remark that you made about her at the end of the book. You said that she was modest and free from vanity; and that she did not try to soar higher than a human being should, but made her flight close to the earth. Yet the man who said that sets the woman above the very stars, even to the point of likening her to goddesses!

She did not want you to think her less intelligent than Alexander. In his case, when the masterbuilder undertook to remodel the whole of Athos and shape it into his likeness, so that the entire mountain would become the image of the king, holding a city in either hand, Alexander would not agree to the monstrous proposal. Thinking the project over-bold for him, he stopped the man from modelling colossi on a scale that transcended convincingness, bidding him to let Athos alone and not

to diminish so great a mountain to similarity with a tiny body. She praised Alexander for his greatness of soul, and observed that thereby he had erected a monument greater than Athos itself in the minds of those who should think of him ever and anon in time to come: for it took no little determination to contemn so marvellous an honour.

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So it was with her, said she; while she commended your skill in modelling and the idea of the portraits, she did not recognize the likeness. She was not worthy of such compliments, not by a great deal, nor was any other mere woman. Therefore she absolves you from honouring her thus, and pays her homage to your patterns and models. You may praise her in the ordinary, human way, but do not let the sandal be too large for her foot; “it might hamper me,” she said, “when I walk about in it.”

Furthermore, she enjoined it upon me to tell you this. “I hear many say (whether it is true or not, you men know

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) that even at the Olympic games the victors are not allowed to set up statues greater than life-size, but the Hellanodicae take care that not one of them shall exceed the truth, and the scrutiny of the statues is more strict than the examination of the athletes. So be on your guard for fear we incur the imputation of falsifying in the matter of height, and then the Hellanodicae overturn our statue.”

That is what she said; and now it is for you, Lycinus, to see how you can refurbish the book and do away with everything of that sort; do not offend against Heaven! Really, she took it very ill, shuddered as it was read, and besought the goddesses to be merciful to her. It is excusable, too, that she should feel as a woman naturally would. Indeed, if the truth must out, I myself had somewhat the same opinion. To be sure, when I heard it first I did not see a single fault in what you had written, but now that she has pointed them out, I myself begin to think as she does about it. My experience in this matter has been just about like that of us all when we look at things. If we see. them too close, under our very eyes, we can distinguish nothing accurately, but if we stand off and look at them from the right distance, all the points come out clearly, those that are good and also those that are not.

Truly, to liken a female human being to Aphrodite and to Hera, what else is it but outright cheapening of the goddesses? In such matters the less is not made greater by the comparison, but rather the greater is lessened by being dragged down to the lower level. If two people were walking together, one of whom was very tall and the other quite humble in stature, and it should be needful to equalize them so that the one would not tower above the other, this could not be accomplished by the shorter through stretching himself, however much he were to raise himself on tiptoe. No, if they are to look alike in size, the latter will stoop and make himself appear shorter. Just so in such comparisons; it is not so true that a man becomes greater if he is likened to a god, as that the divine is inevitably minimized by being forced down to match what is defective. If it were for lack of earthly objects of comparison that one let one’s speech range to those in Heaven, one would be less open to the charge of acting impiously therein. But in your case, though you had so many examples of fair women at command, you made bold to liken her to Aphrodite and Hera without any need.

Do away, then, with all this that is excessive and invidious, Lycinus—that sort of thing is not in keeping with your character, for you have not as a rule been ready and quick to praise. Now, however, you have somehow changed all at once and are lavish with it; you who were so niggardly before have become a spendthrift in compliments! Do not be ashamed, either, to reshape the essay after it has been put into circulation. Even Phidias, they say, did that when he made the Zeus for the people of Elis!

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He stood behind the door when he first unveiled and exhibited his work, and listened to those who criticized or commended any part. One would criticize the nose as too thick, another the face as too long, and so it went. Then, when the spectators had left, Phidias locked himself up once more, and corrected and reshaped the statue to suit the opinion of the majority; for he did not think that the advice of so many folk was trivial, but that always of necessity the many could see better than the one, even if that one were Phidias.

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That is what she told me to tell you, and what I myself recommend as your friend and well-wisher.

LYCINUS Polystratus, what an orator you have been all along without my knowing it! You have delivered such a long speech and such a weighty indictment of my essay that you have not left me even a hope of defence now. But see here! you have not dealt fairly, the two of you, and especially you, in that you have condemned the book without a hearing, since its counsel was not in court. It is easy, I take it, to win if you run alone, as the saying goes. So it is no wonder that I was defeated when no water was measured out for me and no chance to defend myself offered. Indeed—and this is the most extraordinary part of it all—you were judges as well as plaintiffs! Well, what is your wish? Shall I rest content with the decision and hold my peace? Or, like the poet of Himera,Stesichorus, who after having maligned Helen, recanted in a palinode (the first), saying that Helen never went to Troy: it was but a wraith! Fable said that he recanted because Helen had struck him blind, and that afterwards he recovered his eyesight. shall I compose a palinode? Or will you give me an opportunity to plead my case on appeal? POLYSTRATUS Yes, indeed, if you have any just plea to offer; for it is not among opponents in court, as you say, but among friends that you will make your defence. For my part, I am even ready to associate myself with you as joint defendant in the case.

LYCINUS But it is annoying, Polystratus, that she will not be present when I make my speech. It would be far better if she were. As it stands, I must plead by proxy.The phrase ἀπ᾽ ἐντολῆς means “by direction.” Strictly speaking, it is appropriate only to the action of an agent, but here it is transferred to that of the principal. Compare Aristides, vol. ii, p. 22 224-5 Dindorf, τὰ δὲ πλεῖστα ἐξ ἐντολῆς τῷ βασιλεῖ κατειργάζετο. But if you are going to be as faithful in carrying my message to her as you have been in carrying hers to me, I shall make bold to cast the die. POLYSTRATUS Never fear, Lycinus, as far as that goes! I shan’t be at all bad, you will find, at delivering your plea, if only you try to speak briefly, so that I may be better able to fix it all in memory. LYCINUS But I really needed to speak at length in answering so forcible an accusation. Nevertheless, for your sake I shall cut my plea short. Take, then, this message from me to her— POLYSTRATUS No, no, Lycinus! Make your speech just as if she herself were present, and then I will do her an imitation of you. LYCINUS Well then, since that is the way you want it, Polystratus, she is here and as the first speaker, of course, has said all that you reported as her messenger; and now it is for me to begin my answer. However—for I shall not hesitate to tell you the state of my feelings—somehow or other you have made the thing more terrifying to me. As you see, I am even now in a sweat and a tremble and almost think I really see her, and the affair has begotten great turmoil within me. But I will begin, anyhow, for it isn’t possible to withdraw, with her already here. POLYSTRATUS Yes, and she shows great friendliness in her expression, for she is radiant, as you see, and gracious. So get on with your speech boldly.

LYCINUS Noblest of women, it is true I praised you, as you say, highly and immoderately; but I do not see what commendation I bestowed as great as the encomium which you have pronounced upon yourself in extolling your reverence for the gods. Really, this is more than all that I said about you, and you ‘must forgive me that I did not add this trait to your likeness; it escaped me because I did not know about it, for there is no other which I should have preferred to represent. So in that particular at least I not only did not go beyond bounds, it seems to me, with my praises, but actually said far less than I should. Think what an important point I omitted there—how very significant as evidence of sterling character and sound judgement! For those who assiduously reverence what pertains to the gods will surely be above reproach in their relations with mankind. So if the speech absolutely must be revised and the portrait corrected, I should not venture to take a single thing away from it, but will add this detail to cap, as it were, and crown the complete work. There is one thing, however, for which I admit that I am very grateful to you. After I had praised the reasonableness of your character and the fact that the present exalted state of your fortunes has not engendered in you any arrogance or pride, you confirmed the truth of my praise by censuring what you did censure in my speech. Not to catch greedily at such praise, but to blush for it and say that it is too high for you betokens a reasonable and unassuming disposition. But the more you manifest that attitude toward praise itself, the more worth of extravagant praise you prove yourself! Really the thing, despite you, has come to a pass where the remark of Diogenes applies. When he was asked how one could become famous, he answered: “If he were to scorn fame!” If I myself should be asked: “Who are most worthy of praise?” I should answer: “Those who are unwilling to be praised!”

But all this, no doubt, is apart from the issue and has nothing to do with the case; and the charge to which I must answer is that in making my sketch of you I likened you in beauty to Cnidian Aphrodite and Our Lady in the Gardens and Hera and Athena. That seemed to you extravagant and presumptuous. I shall address myself precisely to that point. It is an ancient saying, however, that poets and painters are not to be held accountable; Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas. Horace, Ars Poet. 9 sq. still less, I think, eulogists, even if they fare humbly afoot like me, instead of being borne on the wings of song. For praise is an unshackled thing, and has ESSAYS IN PORTRAITURE DEFENDED no limit, whether upper or lower, prescribed for it. The only object that it ever has in view is to excite high admiration and to maké its subject enviable. Nevertheless, I shall not take this course, for fear you may think that I do so for want of a better.

This, however, I do say; the conditions that govern us in these laudatory writings are such that the eulogist must employ comparisons and similes, and really the most important part of it is to make successful comparisons. And success would be most likely to be held attained, not if a man compares like to like, or if he makes his comparison with something that is inferior, but if he approximates, in so far as he may, what he is praising to something that surpasses it. For example, if in praising a dog someone were to say that it was larger than a fox or a cat, does it seem to you that he knows how to praise? You will not say so! But even if he should say it was as large as a wolf, he has not praised it generously. Well, at what point will the special end of praise be achieved? When the dog is said to resemble a lion in size and in strength. So the poet who praised Orion’s dogPindar, frag. 74a (Schroeder). called him “lion-daunting.”’ That, of course, in the case of a dog is perfect praise. Again, if someone who wished to praise Milo of Croton or Glaucus of Carystus or PolydamasFamous boxers; see the Index. should say of any one of them that he was stronger than a woman, do not you suppose that he would be laughed at for the senselessness of his praise? Indeed, if it had been said that he was better than any single man, that would not have sufficed for praise. Come, how did a famous poet? praise Glaucus when he said: “Not even mighty Polydeuces” could have held up his hands against that man, “nor yet the iron-hard son of Alemene!” You see what gods he likened him to—nay, actually avouched him better than those gods themselves! And it cannot be said either that Glaucus became indignant when he was praised in opposition to the gods who are the overseers of athletes, or that they punished either Glaucus or the poet as guilty of sacrilege in the matter of that praise. On the contrary, both enjoyed good fame and were honoured by the Greeks, Glaucus for his strength and the poet especially for this very song! Do not wonder then, that I myself, desiring to make comparisons, as one who sought to praise was bound to do, used an exalted counterfoil, since my theme demanded it.

Since you mentioned flattery, let me say that I praise you for hating flatterers; I would not have it otherwise. But I wish to make a distinction and a difference for you between the achievement of one who praises, and its exaggeration on the part of one who flatters. The flatterer, since he praises for a selfish reason and has little regard for truth, thinks that he must praise everything to excess, telling falsehoods and contributing a great deal on his own account, so that he would not hesitate to declare Thersites had a better figure than Achilles, and that of all who took part in the expedition against Troy, Nestor was the youngest; he would take his oath upon it that the son of Croesus had sharper ears than Melampus,The son of Croesus was a deaf-mute (Herod. 1, 34 and 85); Melampus the seer could hear worms in the roof talking to each other (Apollodorus 1, 9, 12). and Phineus sharper sight than Lynceus,Phineus was blind; Lynceus could see what was underground (Apoll. 3, 10, 3). if only he hoped to gain something by the lie. But the other, in praising the self-same object, instead of telling any lie or adding any quality that did not belong to it, would take the good points that it had by nature, even if they were not very great, and would amplify them and make them greater. He would venture to say, when he wished to praise a horse, which is the lightest of foot and the best runner of all the animals that we know. Over the top of the flowers he ran without bending them downward. Iliad20, 227, of the horses of Erichthonius, sired by Boreas. And again he would not hesitate to speak of the swiftness of wind-footed horses. Source unknown, if δρόμον is part of the quotation. But for “wind-footed horses,” see Hymn to Venus217, Pindar, frag. 221. And if he were to praise a house that was beautiful and handsomely furnished, he would say: Surely like this, inside, is the palace of Zeus on Olympus. Odyssey4, 74, said by Telemachus to his friend, admiring the palace of Menelaus. The flatterer, however, would express himself in that way even about the swineherd’s hut, if only he hoped to get something from the swineherd! Take Cynaethus, the toady of Demetrius Poliorcetes; when he had used up all his means of flattery, he praised Demetrius, who was troubled with a cough, because he cleared his throat melodiously!

That flatterers do not hesitate to lie for the sake of pleasing the objects of their praise, whereas those who really praise try to magnify what actually exists, is not the only distinguishing mark of each. They differ in a further point, and not a trivial one, that flatterers use hyperbole to the full extent of their powers, while those who really praise are discreet in precisely that particular and remain within their bounds. These are a few out of many earmarks of flattery and of genuine praise which I give you so that you may not suspect all who praise you, but may distinguish between them and gauge each by his proper standard.

Come then, apply, if you will, both canons to my words, that you may discover whether they conform to this one or the other. If it had been some ugly woman whom I likened to the statue in Cnidos, I might indeed be accounted a liar, and a worse flatterer than Cynaethus. But since it was one whose beauty is known to all, the venture was not a salto mortale.

Perhaps, then, you may say—indeed, you have already said—that you concede my right to praise you for your beauty, but that I should have made my praise unexceptionable and should not have compared a mortal woman with goddesses. As a matter of fact (now she is going to make me speak the truth!) it was not with goddesses I compared you, my dear woman, but with masterpieces of good craftsmen, made of stone or bronze or ivory; and what man has made, it is not impious, I take it, to compare with man. But perhaps you have assumed that what Phidias fashioned is Athena, and that what Praxiteles made in Cnidus not many years ago is Heavenly Aphrodite? Come now, would it not be unworthy to hold such beliefs about the gods, whose real images I for my part assume to be unattainable by human mimicry?

But if I had actually compared you, as much as you will, with the very goddesses themselves, I should not have been doing it on my own responsibility and should not have been the first to open this road. No, there have been many good poets ahead of me, and above all your fellow-citizen Homer, whom I shall now call up to plead for me, or else there is nothing for it but that he himself will be convicted along with me! I shall therefore ask him, or, better, ask you in his stead, since you know by heart—and it is greatly to your credit—all the prettiest of the verses that he composed, what you think of him when he says of Briseis, the captive, that as she mourned for Patroclus she resembled golden Aphrodite?Iliad19, 282. Then after a bit, as if it were not enough that she should be like Aphrodite only, he says: Then made answer, in tears, the maid as fair as a goddess. Iiad19, 286 When he says that sort of thing, do you loathe him and fling away the book, or do you permit him to enjoy full freedom in his praise? Well, even if you refuse permission, at all events Time in his long flight has given it, and nobody has found fault with Homer on that score, neither the man who made bold to flog his statue nor the man who marked the spurious lines by setting daggers beside them.Respectively Zoilus the Homeromastix and Aristarchus of Alexandria, the grammarian. Then if he is to be permitted to compare a foreign woman, and in tears at that, with golden Aphrodite, for my part, not to speak of your beauty because you will not listen, may not I compare with images of the gods a radiant woman, usually smiling, a trait which men have in common with the gods?

In the case of Agamemnon, moreover, see how parsimonious Homer was with the gods, and with what propriety he doled out his comparisons! He says that in eyes and head he was like to Zeus, in waist to Ares, and in chest to Poseidon,

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dismembering the man for the sake of comparing him with all those gods. Again, he says that someone is a match for devastating Ares;

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and just so with the rest of them—the Phrygian, the son of Priam, is beautiful as a god,

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and the son of Peleus is often godlike.

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But I will return to the parallels that concern women. You know, naturally, that he says:

Artemis she resembleth, or else Aphrodite the golden,

Odyssey17, 37 (19, 54), of Penelope.

also,

Just so Artemis runneth adown the slope of a mountain.

Odyssey6, 102, of Nausicaa.

Moreover, he not only compares human beings with gods, but likens the long hair of Euphorbus to

the Graces, and that too when it was soaked with blood! In short, this sort of thing is so frequent that there is no part of his poetry which is not well adorned with comparisons of gods. Therefore you must either expunge all that, or permit us to be equally venturesome. So exempt from all accountability is the use of comparisons and similes that Homer actually did not hesitate to derive praise for the goddesses from things of lower degree. For instance, he likened Hera’s eyes to those of kine. And someone else called Aphrodite violet-browed.

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As for “rosy-fingered,” who that has even the slightest acquaintance with Homer’s poetry does not know it?

As far as personal appearance is concerned, it signifies comparatively little if one is said to be like a god. But how many there are who have copied the very names of the gods, calling themselves Dionysius, Hephaestion, Zeno, Poseidonius, Hermes! And there was a Leto, the wife of Evagoras, king of Cyprus; yet the goddess did not take on about it, though she might have turned her into stone as she did Niobe. The Egyptians I forbear to mention, who, though the most superstitious people in the world, yet use the names of the gods to their hearts’ content; in fact, most of their names are derived from Heaven.

It is not incumbent upon you, then, to be thus timorous in respect of praise. If any offence at all has been perpetrated against divinity in that essay, you are not accountable for it—unless you think that to listen makes one accountable; it is I whom

the gods will punish, after first punishing Homer and the other poets! But to this day they have not punished the best of the philosophers for saying that man was God’s image!

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Although I might say much more to you, I shall stop for the sake of Polystratus here, so that he may be able to repeat from memory what has been said. POLYSTRATUS I don’t know if that is any longer possible for me, Lycinus. Even as it is, you have made a long speech, far beyond your allowance of water. But I shall try to remember it all the same; and, as you see, I am already making off to her with my ears stopped for fear that something else may pop in to confuse its outline, and then I may have the bad luck to be hissed by my hearers! LYCINUS That is your concern, Polystratus, to act your part to the best advantage. As for me, now that I have once for all put the play into your hands, I shall withdraw for the present; but when they announce the votes of the judges, I shall be there in person to see what will be the outcome of the contest.